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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



Chap.F.ilJoCopyright No. „ 

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



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TOPOORAPHIC MAP 



INDIANA 

DRAWN t^ CHA9R DRYER 
CONTOURS b^rLEVERETT 
Co^t-out inle.na roo r,,^ 



i 



STUDIES 



INDIANA GEOGRAPHY 



EDITED BY 
CHARLES REDWAY DRYER, M. A., M. D. 

Professor of GEOGR/iriiv in Tue Indiana State Normal School 



FIRST SERIES 



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Terre Haute, Ind. 
THE INLAND P(;HLISHING COMPANY 



COPYRKIIIT, 1897 
BY 

THE INLAND PUBLISHING COMPANY 



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CO 

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Or 



TO 
WILLIAM MORRIS DAVIS 

I'KOFESSOR OF PHYSIC.U. (JEOCIRAPIIY IX HaRVARI) UXIVEKSITY, 

T(l M-IIOSE SlT.r.ESTIOS THIS AND SO MANY OTHER EKFORTS FOR 

THE IMPROVEMENT OF CKOGRAPHIC TEACHING ARK DUE, 

THESE STUDIES ARE RfSI-ECTFUl-LV DElllCATED BY 

THE EDITOR 



TAl'.LE OF CONTENTS 



I. Tci Stuilints Mud Teachers 7 

II. 'I'lic New (ieograiihy •' 

ClIAUI.KS 1!. DliVKU. 

III. The (ii'iuTal Geography of Indiana 17 

Chari.k.s K. Dkyku. 

IV. The (ila.ial Deposits of Indiana 29 

Fh.v.nk Lhvkuett. 

\'. Tile Eiic-\\'al)ash Itegion J'? 

Ch.\kles R. Dryeh. 

\'l. 'I'iic Morainic Lakes of Indiana 53 

Charles R. Dryer. 

\'1I. The Natural Re.sources of Indiana (Jl 

Willis S. Blatchley. 

\III. in.liana: .V t'entury of Changes in the Aspects of Nature. . . 72 

Amos W. Butler. 

IX. A Study of tlie City of Terre Haute S2 

Charles R. Dryer. 

X. A 8hort History of the Great Lakes 90 

Frank Bursley Taylor. 



LIST OF MAPS 



Topographic Map of Indiana Frontispiece 

Rainfall and Mean Temperature for iSOd 25 

Resources and Population 26 

Glacial Map of Indiana 28 

Glacial Map of North America 33 

The Erie- Wabash Region 42 

Morainic Lakes of Indiana Placing page 53 

Two Stages of the Earlier Glacial Lakes 98 and 99 

Glacial Lakes Algonquin and Iroquois 103 

The Nipissing Great Lakes and the Champlain Sea 107 



I.— TO STUDENTS AND TEACHERS OF GEOGRAPHY 

To the student of scientific geography Indiana has been almost a sealed 
book. Very little of its area has ever been studied in the light of modern 
geographic science. The knowledge incidentally acquired l)y naturalists 
and geologists in the pro.sccution of their work is so scattered and buried 
in a mass of other material as to be unavailable. The paragraphs or 
chapters upon Indiana in the current text-l)Ooks of geography are, for 
the most i)art, meagre, empty and uninteresting. One of the very latest 
and best primary geographies tells the children that "Indiana is hilly in 
the southeast, the rest of the state is one vast rolling prairie." There is 
as much geography to the square mile in Indiana as in any other state, 
and to Indiana students and teachers it is far more important than 
Tiiibet or Central Africa. 

In an address before the National Geographic Society at Washington, 
February 3, 1893, upon the Improvement of Geographical Teaching, 
Professor William Morris Davis of Harvard University said: "The im- 
Iirovements needed in teaching geograpliy in our .schools involve a fuller 
investigation of the facts of the subject, a better knowledge of these facts 
by teachers, and a more .skillful use of them in the process of tcacliing. 
I may brielly state my belief that skillful teaching goes along closely 
with fulness of knowledge. The third need will therefore be largely 
cared for when the second is supplied; but lulness of knowledge cannot 
be expected ol" a teacher while her understanding of the geographical fea- 
tures of till' world an<l of our own ciiuntry, and of tlie home state in par- 
ticular, is gained on!}' from the impoverished statements of the ordinary 
text-books, and while the original sources in which she may seek addi- 
tional information are generally so few, so inaccessible, and so far below 
the standards of modern geographical research. 

"It may not be generally recognized that there is still great need of 
exploration at home. It is not only in the farther corners of the world 
that discoveries are to be made. Nearly every state in our country must 
be much mori^ carefullj' studied than it yet has been before its physical 
features will be made known to us. The geographical descriptions now 
accessible in print would be very gentl}' characterized if only called 'old 
fashioned.' Wliere newer material has been published, it is generally 
fragmentary, brief, and imperfectly illustrated. The lirst elements of 



8 STUDIES IN INDIANA GEOGRAPHY 

geographical stucl_y, the physical features of the earth — especially of its 
surface — still call for devoted investigation. 

"Teachers in our public schools are well aware that they have not now 
the fuller account of the facts that they would enjoy; and yet they know 
not where to turn to find what they need. Many teachers, principals 
and superintendents admit at once that the books to which they now 
have access are quite insufficient to satisfy their wants, and they listen 
gladly to any feasible plan that will provide a more extended description 
and explanation of the facts of geography near at home, with which they 
have to deal from their earliest to their latest teaching. Geologists or 
geographers who are already acquainted with our local geography from 
personal experience can perform a grateful service to the schools bj' pre- 
paring elementary accounts of the regions with which they are familiar, 
and such books as these should be greatly multiplied; but,' so far as I 
have been able to learn, it is only the smaller part of our country that is 
now known well enough to those who can be prevailed upon to write 
elementary books, and hence the importance of actual geographical ex- 
ploration in order to supplj' our teachers with what they need. If some 
such plan as the one proposed above were put in ojjeration, it might 
come to pass in a decade or two that the graduates of our common schools 
would not be so blinded as they now are to the facts of their home geog- 
raphy." * 

To act upon the suggestion of Professor Davis, and to make a begin- 
ning toward a better state of things, this series of Studies in Indiana 
Geography has been planned and executed. The welcome accorded to 
them as they appeared in The Inland Educator has encouraged the editor 
and publisher to put them in a more convenient form for the school and 
the libraiy. It is hoped that the^ may stimulate not only better teach- 
ing but further investigation. There is scarcely a township in Indiana 
which does not offer a field for new discovery, or at least for renewed and 
improved description. The Outline for Township Institute work for 
1896-97 called for an essay on the Wabash river, and several thousand 
teachers discovered that there is less available knowledge about the 
Wabash than about the Congo, the LaPlata or the Hoang Ho. Geographic 
problems worthy of attention lie at everyone's door, and he who will 
undertake their study and report his results will strengthen himself and 
make a valuable contribution to geographic and educational science. It 
is hoped that good material may accumulate for a continuation of this 
series in the future. The thanks of the editor and the j^ulilic are due to 
Messrs. Leverett, Blatchley, Butler, and Taylor for their generous and 
disinterested contributions to the cause of sound knowledge and good 
teaching. The article of Mr. Taylor has been rewritten to embody the 
latest results of investigation, and his maps liave been redrawn. 

''Nutional Geographic Magazine, Vol. IV, p. 68. 



ir.— THE NEW GEOGRAPHY* 

rHARLE-S R. DRYKU 

The prevalent and odicial view of geograpliv held in Indiana to-da^', 
is that it treats of the earth viewed in relation to the institutional life of 
man. I have been unalde to discover the author of this particular lormida, 
but the root of the idea undoubtedly lies in the Erdhmde of Karl Hitter, 
who taught geography at Berlin from 1820 to 1859. While Kitter did 
great service to geograi)hy by counteracting the tendency of Humboldt 
to include in it the whole of natural science, it is also true that his in- 
fluence led to the other extreme, equally vicious, because it narrowed 
the science to a single relation and reduced it to little more than an ad- 
junct to history. In a large number of American schools to-day, ge- 
ography is still classified as " historical science," and a divorce between 
"geography" and "physical geography" is maintained, which in itself is 
absurd and destructive of the higher values of the science. To charac- 
terize this view as "old fashioned," antiquated and out of date, is to use 
very mild language. It looks like a willful shutting of eyes to the scien- 
tific progress of the last half-century, of which geography has enjoyed its 
share. It sounds like a survival from the old geocentric theory of the 
universe, prolonging into the twentieth century the idea that the uni- 
verse was made for man and has no meaning apart from him. Its im- 
plication is strongly telcological, and the problem wliieh Ritter and CUiyot 
attacked with such brilliant ability, was nothing less than to show how 
each continent has been especially designed to produce and foster a si)Ccial 
type of human culture. The Ritterian idea is at bottom a religious 
rather than a scientific one; and in the light of modern evolutionary 
thought such prol)lenis assume a different aspect. They are seen to be, 
for the present at least, beyond human knowledge and ability, and the 
modern student prefers to devote himself to the purely physical problems. 
The center of gravity is shifting away from man to nature. Physical 
geograiihy, enlarged and enriched by whole new sciences, is being re- 
stored to its proper place at the foundation, and modern geography is 
becoming more a natural than a historical science. A few recent ex- 
pressions of opinion from eminent and, .so far as may be, authoritative 
German, French and English sources, will serve to present the modern 
views. 



" Read before the Indiana State Teachers' Assoeialion, DiceniliLi-, INiil, 



10 STUDIES IN INDIANA GEOGRAPHY 

The Third International Geographical Congress, which met at Venice 
in 1881, adopted the following resolutions: 

(A) " Tlie scientific object of geography comprehends the study of the 
superficial forms of the earth ; it extends also to the reciprocal relations 
of the different Ijranches of the organic world. 

(B) "That wliich eminently distinguishes geogi'aph)' from the auxil- 
iary sciences is that it localizes objects; that is to say, it indicates in a 
positive and constant manner the distribution of beings, organic and in- 
organic, upon the earth." 

Professor Hettnor of the University of Leipsic, wrote in 1895: "The 
geography of to-day starts from the point of view of diversitj' in space, 
and aims at a scientific explanation of the nature of regions, inclusive of 
their inhabitants. Its task is to investigate the distribution of phenom- 
ena in mutual dependence." 

■Professor Neumann of the University of Freiburg, has this year de- 
clared as follows: "General geography deals with the general laws of 
the distribution of every class of phenomena on the earth's surface. Spe- 
cial geography describes and explains the various countries in their char- 
acteristic peculiarities of land and water forms, climate, vegetation, animal 
life, human settlements and their conditions of organization and culture." 

Mr. Mackinder, reader in geography at the University of Oxford, has, 
of all men in Great Britain, given most attention to the organization of 
geography and its relation to education. In his presidential address be- 
fore the geography section of the British Association for the Advancement 
of Science, last year, he said: "The geographer is concerned with the 
atmosphei-e, the hydroqthere, and the surface of the lithosphere. His first 
business is to define the form or relief of the surface of the solid sphere 
and the movements or circulations within the two flui(f spheres. The 
land relief conditions the circulation, and this in turn gradually changes 
the land relief. The circulation modifies climates, and these, together 
with the relief, constitute the environments of plants, animals and men. 
This is the main chain of the geographical argument. In the language 
of Richthofen, 'the earth's surface and man are the terminal links?' " 

Professor de Lapparent of Paris, in his physical geography published 
during the present year, writes: "While ancient geography accords a 
preponderant place to all that concerns man, the new teaching not only 
discards that order of considerations, but claims to subordinate human 
action to the influence of nature. * * * On the one hand it 
embraces the precise definition, accordinc/ to form and origin, of all the 
homogeneous units into which the surface of the globe can be divided. 
On the other hand, it inquires how these forms react upon those external 
physical conditions upon which all the surface activities of our planet 
depend, both in the mineral kingdom and in the organic world. It then 



TIIK XKW GEOGKArilY 11 

comi)lctes its work by drawing ;i picture uf the result i)roclucL'd by this 
combination of diverse elements, wherein human activity plays its large 
and proper part." 

If it be desirable to condense all these views into a concise formula, 
perhaps none better can be ft)und than this: Geography treats of the 
distribution of all terrestrial phenomena in mutual dependence. Or, to 
crowd all possible meaning into the word "science," Geography it the 
science of duUnbutions. If this be too indefinite by reason of brevity, it may 
be expanded b}' specifying that geography is the science which deals 
with the mutual relations in space of relief, climate and life. This is 
essentially the same thought which Guyot expressed more figuratively 
when he said that geograjjhy views the earth as a living organism. It is 
only the legitimate development of an idea as old as Eratosthenes and 
Strabo, who aimed at the accurate location in space of every feature of 
the earth. Geography deals with space relations, history with time re- 
lations ; therefore geography is in no sense a historical science. 

The foundation of the geographic structure, or the first link in "the 
chain of geographic argument," is the new science of cjeomorpholngij , which 
undertakes to study the structure and origin of relief forms, much as the 
anatomist studies and describes the structure of the various organs of the 
human body. The second course in the pyramid of geographj' might be 
called gcophysMogy, because it is a study of the vital circulations which 
are taking place in the ocean and the air. The third course is gcohiology, 
which deals with the vegetable and animal elements of the earth organ- 
ism. The last and crowning block, at the apex of the pyramid, is geo- 
avthropnlogji, or the science of the relations of earth and man. Each 
division postulates and rests upon all the preceding divisions, and each 
element in turn reacts upon all the other elements. Geography lays all 
sciences under contribution for materials, but no other science pretends 
to build these materials into such a structure. Every auxiliary science 
contributes a certain quota of brick and stone, but geography furnishes 
the ground, draws the plans, and erects with enduring cement a grand 
and inipo.sing temple. 

The special and peculiar instrument of expression in geography is the 
map, because a map shows the facts of distribution better than anything 
else can. The .series of maps prepared by Mr. Gannett to accompany the 
Report of the Tenth Census of the United States illustrates to perfection 
the special function of geography. It contains maps showing the relief 
of the United States; the maximum, minimum, and mean annual tem- 
peratures; the mean annual rainfall; the distribution of metals and for- 
ests; the production of grain, cotton and cattle; the density of human 
population, and many others. Workers in man}' scientific fields contrib- 
uted materials, but it remained for the geographer alone to make these 



12 STUDIES IN INDIANA GEOGEAPHY 

maps and by their means to show the remarkable relations which exist 
between relief, climate, products and people. 

Perhaps the most striking feature of the new geography is the i)romi- 
nence which it gives to the study of relief. It is not content with a 
superficial descrii^tion of plains, plateaus, mountains and valleys, but 
recognizes the fiict tliat these forms of the land j)0ssess a structure and 
have had a history; and, above all, that they cannot be truly seen, un- 
derstood or descrilied until they are studied in the light of their origin. 
The scientific geographer does not admit that there are any "dead forms" 
. in nature. The surface of the land itself is as truly undergoing a process 
of evolution as are the flora and fauna which inhabit it. The scientist 
sees as clearly as the poet that 

"The hills are shadows and they flow 
From form to form, and nothing stands; 
They melt like mist, the solid lands, 

Like clouds they shape themselves and go." 

This is the new science which the geologists of the last decade have 
created and now hand over to the geographers; a fitting trilnite from the 
youngest of the sciences to the oldest — the mother of all. I'hyb-wgraphy, 
or the mutual reactions of earth and air, of relief and climate — geomor- 
phulugy, or the science of land forms, are some of the names by which it is 
known; but, under whatever name, it has become the foundation of ra- 
tional geography. Those who hold to the dogma that every science must 
be fenced off from every other science by a thought-tight barrier may 
protest against this invasion, as they deem it, of the field of geolog}'. But 
the fact is that geomorphology is a common domain held by both sciences 
as tenants in entirety. The geologist can read the past history of the 
earth only b}' a study of the forms and processes now in existence. 
The geographer cannot understand existing forms without knowing 
something of their history. Both use the same material but for different 
purposes. As Mr. Mackinder has happily exjiressed it, " the geographer 
studies the present in the light of the past, the geologist studies the past 
in the light of the present." One is concerned primarily with the time 
relations of phenomena, the other primarily with space relations. With- 
out a knowledge of the present the historian of the earth is helpless; with- 
out a knowledge of the past the student of the present earth is badly crip- 
pled. The twin sciences of geology and geography are indissolubly united 
at their common foundation, and the failure to recognize this fact is the 
chief cause of the deplorable state into which the prevalent geography of 
the schools has fallen. The influence of the new science of geomor- 
phology upon geograph)^ is likely to prove far-reaching and favorable. 
Without it geography has been a pyramid resting upon its apex; a castle 
in the air without adequate foundation. The surface of the earth has 



THE NKW GEOGKAPHY 13 

Iii'cn iiicturt'd and dcscrihod superficiidly and without iierspcctivc. For 
want of" depth and perspective chilchcn are still being taught that ii vol- 
cano is a burning mountain, that a mountain range is a row of moun- 
tains in line, and that the Niagara gorge or Colorado Canyon was made 
by some great convulsion of nature. To say that all great elevations of 
land are mountains is as great a mistake as to say that all swimmers are 
fishes and all fliers birds. 

The new science of goomorphology jiossesses the great educational 
merit that it can be studied in the field; and the field is everywhere, or 
at least wherever the natural surface of the earth can Ije reached. There 
are very few schools within easy walking distance of which cannot be 
found a valley and a stream — that universal concurrence of a valley and 
a stream which has been the despair of the geologist for a hundred years. 
It is easy enough to account for the stream, but the valley has l)een a 
puzzle. After trying all other explanations and finding them inadiTjuate, 
the very simple conclusion has been reached that the stream has made 
its own valley. This idea once grasped the way is plain. A careful 
study of even a very small stream and its drainage liasin will reveal in 
surprising detail the processes which have been shaping the face of the 
earth ever since it rose above the sea. The universal progress of weather- 
ing, transportation, corrasion, erosion and sedimentation is seen going on 
under the very eyes of the children. The materials of the earth-crust, 
its diversity of structure and the evolution in miniature of nearly every 
feature on the surface of the globe are displayed in endless variety. Ev- 
ery landscape acquires a new interest and meaning. The student obtains 
from his own experience a basis with which to correlate information 
al)Out regions he has never seen. He has learned the ali)haV»et in which 
nature has written her cuneiform inscriptions all over the face of the 
earth, and he can read her rec'ords. Such work as this takes geography 
out of the list of merely informational studies and gives it as much 
value for scientific training as any other science. The .student who has 
had a taste of this will never again be content to ciam facts, but will be 
likely to ask the sometimes awkward questions, what is the rca.«on? how 
did that come to be so? 

Along with this field work out of doors goes laboratory work (an<l 
every school-room can be a laboratory), consisting of actual daily obser- 
vations of the sun, stars and sky, of wind, rain and snow, of temperature, 
humidity and pressure. The geography of the air is more diflficult than 
that of the earth, Init the teacher who knows the subject can do a great 
deal toward giving pupils a correct understanding of weather and climate, 
and can avoid the ])ure mythology which too many text-books contain 
upon this subject. The relation of plants to soil and atmosphere is witliin 
the grasp of very young pupils, and it is as easy to understand as that all 



14 STUDIES IN INDIANA GEOCiKAPHY 

iiniinals depend upon jilants for food. Having laid such a foundation, 
the student is prepared to see something of the crowning relation of ge- 
ography — that of man to his whole physical environment; and without 
that foundation this relation is meaningless, because one of its elements 
is wanting. Herein lies the chief failure of the old geography, that it 
attempts the impossible. It begins at the top and builds in the air. The 
relation of earth to the institutional life of man is one of the most com- 
plex relations of science, and one hazards nothing in saying that not one 
student of geography in a thousand has had sufficient training in seeing 
simpler relations, or knows enough about either the earth or human in- 
stitutions to see their relations. Geography studied in logical sequence 
and by scientific methods becomes in turn one of the indispensable foun- 
dations of history, sociology and political economy. It bridges the 
whole space between the sciences of nature and the sciences of man. 

The teachers of the United States are speciallj' fortunate in having 
the organization, aims, methods and spirit of the new geography clearly 
set before them in the report of the Conference on Geography to the 
Committee of Ten. If this paper accomplishes nothing more than to 
call renewed and serious attention to that report it will serve the writer's 
purpose. The whole subject is there presented with a logical power and 
richness of detail which are unrivaled. The key-notes of that report are 
field luark and scientific explanation. Observation, reproduction, reasoning, 
are the very essence of the new geography. The report seems to have 
been written in the shadow of two convictions; first, that its recom- 
mendations are revolutionary; and second, that to put them into execu- 
tion is, under present conditions, a matter of extreme difficulty. Of all 
school subjects, geography has partaken least in the recent renaiasaMe. 
Its materials and methods are scarcely better than twenty years ago. 
The only natural science which forms a part of every school course is 
taught less scientifically than any other subject. If the writer were to 
speak solely from his own observation and experience, he would say that 
the general results of geography teaching in the grades are next to noth- 
ing except a mild dislike for the subject. Wherever the teaching is an 
attempted cramming of facts from the text-book, dullness and disgust 
are inevitable consequences, and long before the high school course is 
completed the facts have all evaporated. A raw country boy with only 
the most elementary training is a more promising student of scientific 
geograjihy than the average high school graduate. The unconscious ed- 
ucation of country life counts for much, the fact of sex counts for more. 
That the average boy has seen a great deal more of nature than the 
average girl is the natural result of their respective habits of life. The 
fact that nearly all the teachers of geography are women is a serious bar 
to the growth of better methods; because as a rule, women have had 



THE NEW GEOGRAPHY 15 

vfi-y little experience in the lield. It is useless to send a class into the 
field with a teacher who can see nothing when she gets there. 

Another serious difficulty in tlie way of liettcr methods of teaching is 
the want of opportunity for the teacher to obtain special training in 
geography. Very few colleges and universities in this country recognize 
the existence of geograph)' as a distinct science, but there are some nota- 
ble exceptions to the rule. Harvard heads the list, where the department 
of physical geography under the direction of Professor Davis has become 
a veritable fountain head from which good influence has penetrated in 
every direction. Cornell, Chicago, Princeton, Yale, Rochester, Leland 
Stanford, Oberlin and Colgate are good secondary centers. As for the 
Normal schools, they are, with few exceptions, still in the dark ages upon 
this subject, and apparently likely to remain strongholds of conservatism. 

The outlook for progress in this direction is not wholly without encour- 
agement. Harvard, Chicago and other institutions offer summer courses 
in geography which are fairlj' well attended. A course of five lectures 
on physical geography by Professor Brigham of Colgate at the Cook 
County Institute last summer was attended and appreciated bj' four hun- 
dred teachers. That the new geography is making some progress may 
be judged from the text-books. Guyot's and Houston's contain about 
one page each upon the subject of geomorphology, the Eclectic one hun- 
dred pages, Tarr's two hundred pages, while the French geography of de 
Lapparent, the most advanced along the new lines, devotes three hundred 
pages to this subject. Good literature and personal training are becom- 
ing more available everj' year, and no teacher in search of them need 
fail to find both. It is here that school officers and superintendents can 
do more than any other influence. Professor Davis of Harvard, in reply, 
to a request for a teacher writes: "It is only occasionally that a student 
here takes enough geography to gain strong recommendation for teaching, 
because employers, thus far, have given no weight to geograjjhical prepa- 
ration for a geographical teacher; anyone might do that sort of work.'' 
If employers of teachers would require a preparation in geography equiv- 
alent to that reijuired in literature or history, a demand for such prepa- 
ration would be created, and higher schools would soon furnish a supply 
equal to the demand. 

This paper has aimed tr) st>t forth the following thoughts concerning 
the new geography: 

1. Its philosophy is not teleological, but evolutionary. It is no longer 
anthropocentric, but geocentric. 

2. The new geography is scientific and rational. It studies not only 
facts (which are stupid things), but the relations between facts. 

3. The new geography has been curidu'd liy the addition at the bottom 
G-2 



16 STUDIES IX IXDIAXA GEOGRAPHY 

of the new science of geomorphology, and is thus brought into close 
alliance with geology. 

4. The new geography forms a connected chain between the purely 
natural sciences and the humanities ; but being preponderatingly a 
natural science it must adopt the scientific or laboratory methods of study 
and teaching. 

5. Thus the new geography becomes able to give, not only information, 
but scientific training ; the ability to discover facts and to see their 
relations. It converts geography from a lifeless bore to a living interest, 
from a dead grind to a delightful activity. It takes it out of the list of 
memory or "useful knowledge" studies, and plants it in the quickening 
current of modern scientific thought. 

6. It is only when built upon "the solid ground of nature" and 
inspired liy the scientific spirit that geography can hope to solve the 
problem of Ritter and Buckle ; the problem of the relation of man to 
his physical environment, and thus, become in fact, the phy.^ical basis 
of histor}' and sociology. 

7. Special means must be adopted to prepare teachers for this kind of 
work. On account of lack of special training and lack of facilities for 
obtaining it, educational progress in this direction will be slow ; but the 
new geography has come to stay, and teachers and school officers will do 
■well to recognize and welcome it. 






III.— THE GENERAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIANA 

chari.es k. pkykr 

Position .\xd Borxn.vKv 

Indiana i,s one of the North Central states, situated in what is some- 
times called the Middle West, Vjetween the iipi)er (ireat Lakes and the 
Ohio, and mostly in the Mississippi basin. The central parallel of the 
United States, the 39th, crosses its southern third and it is included be- 
tween 37° 41' and 41° 46' north latitude, and lietween 84° 44' and 88° 6' 
west longitude. It is bounded on the north by the parallel which is ten 
miles north of the southern extremity of Lake Michigan ; on the east by 
the meridian of the mouth of the Great Miami river; on the south by 
the Ohio; and on the west by the Wabash river and the meridian of 
Vincennes. Its extreme length is 2oO miles, its average width 145 miles, 
its area, 36,350 square miles. 

Elevation 

According to Powell's division of the United States into physiographic 
regions,* Indiana lies mostly on the Ice Plains, but includes a small 
portion of the Lake Plains on the north, and of the Alleghany 
Plateau on the southeast. The highest land in tlie state, in Southern 
Randolph county, is 1,285 feet above tide; the lowest, at the southwest 
corner, is 313 feet. The area above 1.000 feet comprises 2,850 square 
miles in three tracts: (1) an irregular area around the headwaters of the 
Whitewater river in Union, Wayne, Randolph, Delaware, Henry, Rush, 
Decatur, Franklin and Ripley counties; (2) a narrow crescentric rid,<;e in 
Brown county: (3) a considerable area in Steuben, DeKalb, Noble, and 
Lagrange counties. Isolated peaks rise in Brown county to 1,172 feet, 
and in Steuben to 1,200 feet. The area between 500 and 1.000 feet in ele- 
vation is 28,800 S([uare miles, and that below 500 feet is 4,700 sr|uare 
miles. The average elevation of the state is 700 feet. 



-Xtttional (Joognipliic Monographs, No. 3. 



18 STUDIES IN INDIANA GEOGRAPHY 

Geological Stbi'Cture 

The rocks of Indiana are all sedimentary, and consist of a series of 
shales, sandstones and limestones laid down upon the bed of a shallow 
ocean off the shore of a land area which lay to the eastward. These 
strata are shown by borings to be more than 3,000 feet thick. They 
have never been compressed, folded or violently disturbed; but have 
been gently lifted into a very flat arch, the crest of which extends from 
Union county to Lake county. From the crest of the arch the strata 
dip gently to the northeast and southwest, the slope in the latter direc- 
tion being about twenty feet to the mile.* The oldest rocks exposed are 
the Hudson river shales, in the southeast; the youngest are the Carbon- 
iferous, along the west side. 

Physical History 

Indiana has been a land surface since the close of the coal period. 
Subjected during those millions of years to weather and stream erosion, 
it was maturely dissected into a complex network of valleys, inter-stream 
ridges, and isolated buttes. Over this surface the great Laurentide 
glacier repeatedly passed, extending once as far as the glacial boundary 
shown on the map, and again to the "Wisconsin" boundary. f Its effect 
was to grind down and smooth off the hills, to fill up the valleys, and to 
leave the surface plastered over with a great mass of loose material, much 
of which was brought from northern regions. Since the final disappear- 
ance of the ice the streams have partially cleared out a few of the old 
valleys and have begun to cut a system of new ones in the surface of 
the drift, but this cycle of erosion is still in its infancy. Thus, the 
greater part of Indiana is a plain of glacial accumulation, of very recent 
origin, and too young to have developed more than rudimentary 
features. 

Physiographic Regions 

The most striking physical contrast in Indiana is that between the 
glaciated and unglaciated areas. A comparison of the toi")Ographic map 
with that showing the revised glacial boundary brings out this contrast 
sharply. North of the limit of drift the contour linesj run in large 



■•'■See the excellent sections of Professor Cubberly, showing the structural features of Indiana, in 
18th Report of State Geologist, p. 219. 

t See Maps, pp. 2G, 28. 

X Contour lines are lines of equal elevation which run across the country, each everywhere at the 
same height above the sea. The shore of the ocean is the basal contour line, and if the sea level 
should rise a hundred feet it would mark a new contour line at that level. Where contour lines are 
far apart the slopes are gentle and the surface comparatively smooth ; where they are close together 
the slopes are steep and the surface rough and broken. The contour lines on the topographic map 
of Indiana are general and approximate only. Fuller and more accurate surveys are necessary lie- 
fore they can be drawn with exactness and detail. 



THE GENERAL GEOGRAPHY OF IXDIANA 19 

curves ami are far apart, sliowing the general smoothness and monotony 
of the surface. South of the glacial boundary the lines are crowded and 
extremely tortuous, showing a surface much cut up. The limit of drift 
encloses and fits this area of broken surface as a man's coat iits his 
shoulders. 

The Ohio Slope. — That portion of the state which slopes directly to the 
Ohio, including the driftless area and the southeastern part of the drift 
plain, is a region of deep, narrow valleys, bounded by precipitous blufis, 
and sejjarated by sharp, irregular tlivides. Isolated knobs and buttes are 
numerous; the crests and summits are from -'iOO to .500 feet above the 
valley bottoms. The streams are rapid and broken by freijuent cataracts. 
All open out into the Ohio \'alley, a trench from one to six miles wide, 
400 feet deep and bounded by steep blutfs. 

T/ie Central Plain. — North of an irregular line extending in a general 
direction from Richmond to Terre Haute, and south of the westward 
flowing portion of the Wabash from Fort Wayne to Attica, the topog- 
raphy is that of an almost featureless drift plain. It is traversed by 
numerous morainic ridges, but they are low and inconsi^icuous. The 
traveler may ride upon the railway train for hours without seeing a 
greater elevation than a hay stack or a pile of saw dust. The divides are 
flat and sometimes swampy, the streams muddy and sluggish. The 
valleys begin on the uplands as scarcely perceptible grooves in the com- 
pact boulder clay, widen much more rapidly than they deei)en. and 
seldom reach down to the rock floor. 

The Northern Plain. — The portion of the drift plain north of the 
Wabash river is more varied than the central plain, and comjirises several 
regions which differ niaterialh' in character. A small area around the head 
of Lake Michigan is occupied by sand ridges and dunes, partly due to a 
former extension of the lake and partly to present wind action. 
Some of the drifting dunes are more than 100 feet high. This region is 
separated by a belt of morainic hills from the ha><iii of the Kmikahe, which 
contains the most extensive marshes and prairies in tlic state. This 
region also is traversed by numerous low ridges of sand, the origin and 
character of whicli are not yet well understood. Many of its features are 
probably due to the fact that during the retreat of the ice-sheet it was 
temporarily ()ccu|iied by a glacial lake, which received the \vash from the 
high moraines to the eastward. Northeastern Indiana is the recjion ojhiijh 
moraines, and has a strongly marked character of its own. A massive 
ridge of drift, twenty-five miles wide, 100 miles long, and from '200-o00 
feet thick, extends from Steuben county to Cass county, and is joined by 
several smaller branches from the northwest. This is the joint moraine 
of the Erie and Saginaw lobes of the Laurentide glacier. Much of its 
surface is extremely irregular, presenting a succession of roiuided domes, 



20 STUDIES IN IXDIAXA GEOGEAPHY 

conical peaks, and winding ridges, witli hollows of corresponding shape 
between, which are occupied by innumerable lakes and marshes; the 
highest points are 100-300 feet above the level intermorainic intervals. 
A large proportion of the material is sand and gravel. A small area in 
eastern Allen county is a part of the bed of the glacial Lake Maumee. 

Drainage 

The general slope of Indiana is to the southwest, as indicated by the 
course of the Wabash river and its tributaries, which drain two-thirds of 
the state. Of the remaining third, one-half is drained directly to the 
Ohio and one-half to Lakes Erie and Michigan, and to the Mississippi 
through the Illinois. 

The Wabaxli River is the great artery of Indiana, which it traverses for 
more than 400 miles. The fall is quite uniforndy about eighteen inches 
per mile. Its current is gentle and unbroken by notable rapids or falls. 
Its valley is quite varied in character. Above Huntington it is a young 
valley, without blufts, terraces or flood plain. BcLiw Huntington, it once 
carried the drainage of the upper Maumee basin, and is nowhere less than 
a mile wide as fiir down as Attica. Below that point its width varies 
from two to six miles. The original valley has been largely filled with 
drift, which the present river has been unable to clear out. It winds be- 
tween extensive terraces of gravel, which border it at various elevations, 
and flows at a level from fifty to one hundred feet above the original rock 
floor. Below Terre Haute, the wide flood plain, ox-bow bends and bayous 
give it a character similar to that of the lower Mississippi. The upper 
tributaries as far down as Lafayette are post-glacial streams in drift val- 
leys, whose courses are largely determined by the trend of the moraines. 
Below that point the smaller tributaries enter the river through jiictur- 
esque sandstone gorges. 

W/)it£ River, the largest tributary of the Wabash and rivaling it in 
volume of discharge, is a much more varied and complex stream. The 
larger West Fork rises at the summit level of the state in Randolph 
county. In its upper course it is moraine-guided, like the upper tribu- 
taries of the Wabash, and presents the same characters as the other streams 
of the central plain. In Morgan county it assumes a different aspect, 
and thence to its mouth flows through a valley from one to three miles 
wide, 100 to 300 feet deep, bordered by wide bottoms. The East Fork 
rises on the same elevation as the West, but reaches its destination by a 
more tortuous course. Although its length is increased and its sloj^e 
decreased by its numerous meanders, it is still a swift stream. Both 
forks of White river suffered many disturbances during the glacial 
period, which have not yet been studied in detail, but are obvious from 



THE GENERAL (lEOGUAPllY OF INDIANA 21 

tlic varying chann-tiT of their valleys ami from the terrarcs which 1 .or- 
der them at all heights up to 300 feet. 

The Whitewater Rirer, takes the shortest course of all from the sum- 
mit level to the Ohio, ami its average fall is aljout seven feet to the mile. 
At Richmond it has cut a narrow gorge into the soft shales 100 feet deep. 
In strongest contrast with this and the other rivers of the Ohio Slope is 
the Kankakee, which winds through wide marshes with a scarcely per- 
ceptible current, and without definite banks. Its l)asin, however, is suffi- 
ciently elevated to render good drainage possible by the construction of 
the reiiuisite ditches, and much has already been done to that end. 

I'livsiouRAriiu; Featuues 

Many important land forms are wanting in Indiana. There are no 
mountains, no valleys formed by upheaval or subsidence, no volcanoes 
or volcanic rocks except foreign fragments brought by the ice-sheet, no 
features due to disturbance of the earth crust except the rock founda- 
tions of the state itself. 

Plaim.— As already indicated, the greater part of Indiana is a plain of 
accumulation; the surface of a sheet of glacial drift which varies in thick- 
ness from a few feet to 500 or more. The average thickness is more than 
100 feet. It consists chiefly of a mass of clay containing more or less 
gravel and boulders— the till or boulder clay of the geologists. This is 
hjcally varied by heaps, ridges, sheets and pockets of sand and gravel, 
ami ill the southern part of the state is overlain by a peculiar fine silt 
called loe^s. The boulder clay is the grist of the glacial mill, and is com- 
posed of a very intimate and heterogeneous mixture of native and for- 
eign materials, containing fragments of almost every known mineral and 
rock. The large fragments, or boulders, are widely distributed, and of 
every size up to thirty feet in diameter. They are nearly all igneous or 
metainorphic in character and can be traced back to their origin in the 
Canadian highlands north of the Great Lakes. 

The driftless area is a plain of degradation, formed Ijy the removal of the 
original rock surface to an unknown depth, and now represinted by the 
summits of the flat and even-topped divides, ridges and hills. 

HilU.—On the northern plain occur numerous hills of accumulation 
forming the great morainic belts, the result of excessive dumping and 
heaping up of drift along the margins and between the lobes of the melt- 
ing ice-sheet. The most impressive examples a refound in Steuben, La- 
grange, Noble and Kosciusko counties, where they attain a height of 200 
feet or more, and are as steep and sharp as the materials will lie. Then- 
peculiar forms and tumultuous arrangement give a striking and pictur- 
esque character to the landscape. 



1 



22 STUDIES IN IXDIAXA GEOGKAniY 

The Ohio Slope is studded all over with hills of degradation — blocks and 
fragments of the original plain left by the cutting out of the valleys 
between them. Some a-re broad and flat-topped, some narrow, crooked 
and level-crested, some sharp or rounded, isolated knobs or buttes. These 
are very conspicuous in the counties of Greene, Daviess, Martin, Craw- 
ford, Orange, Washington and Jackson, but attain their greatest develop- 
ment in Floyd, Clarke and Scott, where the Silver Hills and Guinea Hills 
rise to 400 and 500 feet above the valley bottoms. In Brown county 
the knob toiJOgrajDhy attains the highest absolute elevation in Weed 
Patch Hill, and the surrounding region is so rugged as to have gained 
the title of the " Switzerland of Indiana." 

In Benton county. Mounts Nebo and Gilboa are isolated masses of 
rock projecting above the general level of the plain, and are probably 
entitled to the name of monadnocks. 

Moraines. — In addition to the massive and rugged moraine belts al- 
ready described, there are many morainic ridges of gentle slope and 
smooth profile, "like dead waves upon the surface of the ocean," conspic- 
uous only upon the map bj' their influence upon streams. Those which 
extend along the right bank of the St. Mary's, upper Wabash, Salamonie, 
Mississinewa, and upper White rivers are typical examples. The south- 
ernmost moraine in the state, which enters Vigo, Vermillion and Parke 
counties from Illinois, is composed largely of a series of broad, low 
movmds, irregularly disposed upon the plain. In this connection should 
be mentioned the form of moraine known as houlder belts — long, narrow, 
curving strips of country thickly covered with large boulders. These 
occur in the counties of Jasper, Newton, Benton, Warren, Tippecanoe, 
Boone, Clinton, Hendricks, Johnson, Shelby, Rush, Henry, Randolph, 
Wayne, Whitley and Huntington. 

Karnes and Eskers. — These are deposits of sand and gravel laid down 
by strong streams of water which flowed from the edge of the melting 
ice-sheet. Kames are irregular ridges and mounds, having a general 
direction at right angles to the direction of ice movement, and are found 
in connection with the massive moraines. Eskers, or "serpent kames" 
are long, winding ridges of sand and gravel, j^arallel to the direction of 
ice movement, and generally extending down a valley of glacial drainage. 
They mark the course of streams which flowed in sub-glacial tunnels. 
The valley ot Turkey creek, in southwestern Noble county, the Erie- 
Wabash channel southwest from Fort Wayne, and the whole course of 
the "Collett Glacial River," from Delaware and Madison to Decatur and 
Bartholomew counties present numerous examples. There are prolialdy 
many more in the state still unreported. 

Closely related to these are sand and gravel streams, plains and overwash 
aprons, in which the material is spread out over broader areas. Northern 



THE GENEKAL CiEOGHAPIIY OF INDIANA 2,3 

Steuben, Northwestern XVliitleyand Central Bartliolomew counties con- 
tain good examples, a tew out of a probably large number in the state. 

Dunes and Beach Rulqes.— These are hills and ridges of sand or gravel, 
cither blown up by tlic wind, or built up by the waves along the shores 
of lakes now withdrawn. The region around the head of Lake Michigan, 
the Kankakee basin, and the Maumee Lake basin cast of Fort Wayne 
aflibrd fields for more extensive study of tliese forms. 

Valleys. — As before .stated, all the valleys of Indiana are the result of 
stream erosion ; most of them by the streams which now occupy them. 
During the glacial period, however, the streams generally carried much 
niiirc water than at present. 

Gorges. Heivines ami Canijons are deep, narrow valleys with precipitous 
walls. They exist in great number and variety throughout the (Jhio 
Slope, occurring along the Whitewater, White and Ohio rivers, and all 
their tributaries. The eastern tributaries of the Wabash in Fountain 
and Parke counties flow through very beautiful canyons cut in mas- 
sive sandstone, often with overhanging walls which, at "The Shades of 
Death," reach a height of 2.50 feet. 

In vallevs of this character rapids and fcdls are very numerous. They 
occur upon nearly every stream emptying into the (Miio, and varv in 
height from a few feet to sixty or eighty. Cliffy Falls in .Jetferson county 
and Cataract in Owen county are among the most I'amous. 

All the streams flowing from the glacial area, had their valleys flooded 
with glacial waters, and choked with glacial debris. The effects of this 
are shown by the extensive terraces of sand and gravel which border their 
present channels, and mark the heights at which they were once able to 
deposit sediment. Between these terraces there are often broad 
"bottoms" or flood plains which furnish the best corn lands in the world. 

Glacial Drainaeje C/ifOi/wis.— During the melting of the ice-sheet the 
waters found escape by numerous channels which are not now occupied 
by any large or continuous stream. A very notable one is the Erie- 
Wabash channel, which carried the waters of the glacial Lake Maumee 
from Fort Wayne into the Waba.sh at Huntington. The largest in the 
state gathered the water from numerous channels in Jay, Grant, Black- 
ford, llandolph, Delaware, :Madison and Henry counties into one great 
stream, which flowed southward through Hancock, Shelby. Barthol- 
omew, .Tennings, .Jackson, Scott and Clark to the Ohio at Jeffersonville. 
In its middle course its valley is forty miles .wide and 400 feet deep, nar- 
rowing to tive miles near its mouth. It has been named the ■•Collett 
Glacial River." 

Lake.-<. — The surface of the northern jilain is peppered with small lakes 
which occupy irregular depressions in the surface of the tlrift, and are 



1 



24 STUDIES IN IXPIAXAJGEOGEAPHY 

especially characteristic of the massive moraines. The whole number 
cannot be less than 1,000. The largest, Turkey Lake in Kosciusko 
county, has an area of five and a half square miles. 

Marshes and Swamps. — These exceed the lakes in number ami extent. 
The smaller ones are the basins of former lakes which have been filled 
\\\) with sediment and vegetation. The largest are in the Kankakee 
basin, and are the remaining vestiges of a glacial lake. Everywhere 
over the central plain the divides are too fiat and the slopes too gentle 
for good drainage, and marshes abound. These, however, have been 
largely drained by ditches. 

Sinl-lioks and Caves. — Extending from Harrison, Crawford and Clarke 
•counties to Putnam is a belt of limestone which is honej'-combed by 
underground streams producing a great variety of sinkholes, caves and 
"lost rivers." The sinkholes are basin-like depressions ten to fifty feet 
deep, and thirty to three hundred feet in diameter, with an opening at 
the center which leads to some underground passage. In some cases a 
stream drops into this hole out of sight and emerges again upon the sui- 
face many miles away. If the opening has become clogged the basin 
holds a pool of clear water. Man\^ of the undei'ground passages have 
been Avholly or partially abandoned by the streams which made them, 
and can be followed great distances. Wyandotte cave in Crawford 
county has been explored a distance of twenty -three miles, and rivals in 
extent and beautj^ the Mammoth Cave of Kentucky. In Harrison c Dunty 
the rocks are so fissured as to render wells uncertain. This county con- 
tains Ripperden, Harrison and Girassy valleys, which are closed amphi- 
theaters of three to ten square miles in area and 200 to 400 feet deep, and 
formed by the falling-in of the roof of subteranean caverns. 

Climate and Vegetation 

The map shows the rainfall and mean temperature for 1896, which 
was very nearly a normal year. The mean temperature for January 
varies from 25° in the north to 33° in the south, for .July from 72° to 77°. 
The absolute extremes of temperature for the state and year are 103° and 
— 22°. The number of days in the year with average temperature below 
freezing is ninety in the north and twenty in the south. The changes 
of temperature are frequent except in summer, when a i^eriod of two or 
three months of uniformly warm, clear weather often occurs. The mean 
rainfall is quite variable from year to year, ranges from thirty-five inches 
in the north to forty-five in the south, and is well distributed through- 
out the year with a slight excess in s^jring. The average annual snowfall 
in the north is forty inches, in the south fifteen. The prevailing winds 
are from the southwest, and the average wind velocity seven to nine 
miles per hour. Thunderstorms and tornadoes ai'e frequent. 



THE CiEXEKAL GEOGRAPHY OF INDIANA 25 

('(intrary to tlie statements made in many books, Indiana is not a 
prairie state. An area estimated to comprise one-eiglith of the whole, 
situated, except a few isolated patches in the northwestern part, is marsh 
and upland prairie. The remainder of the state was originally covered 
by a heavy growth of oak, walnut, beech, maple and other hardwood 
timber, with sycamore and poplar near the streams, and a little pine 
along the Ohio slope. No region in the United States could show finer 
specimens, or a greater number of individuals and species of forest trees 
than the lower Wabash ^^^lley. The same region is said to be the orig- 
inal habitat of the bluegrass which has made Indiana and Kentucky 
pastures so famous. 



So<' 




K.M.NF.VI.L \Sl) >n:AX TESIl'KH.VTLRE TOR ISOli. 



26 



STUDIES IX INDIANA GEOCiRAPHY 



Resources 
Mineral. — As shown upon the map, an area in the southwestern 
part of the state, comprising 7,000 square miles, is underlain hj numerous 
seams of bituminous and block coal, which is mined to the extent of 
four million tons j-early. The natural gas field in the East Central part, 
an area of 2,500 square miles, turnishes gas to the value of $1,500,000 
annually, which is used by numerous manufacturers in the field, and is 
piped to all the neighboring cities and to Chicago. Indiana is second 
only to Pennsylvania as a gas producing state. On the northern border 
of the gas field is a small but rich and growing petroleum field. A nar- 




KESOl'RCES AND POPULATION. 



THE GENERAL GEOGRAPIIY OF INDIANA 27 

row belt extending tVoiii ^^^lsllington to Putnam county furnishes the 
best limestone in tlir \vc)rl<l tor l)uilfling purposes. Clays and shales, 
suitable for brick and tile mailing, occur in nearly every county. Law- 
rence, Martin and Owen counties contain deposits of kaolin of sutHciently 
high grade for the manutacture of fine pottery. Floyd and Parke conn- 
ties furnish a good Cjuality of glass-sand. 

AgriaiUural. — Agriculture has been, and proljably will always remain, 
the foundation of Indiana's prosperity. Theglacial drift is a very product- 
ive and permanent soil, especially for the cereal grains. The level tracts 
of boulder clay require under-draining to obtain the best results. The 
alluvial soils of the bottoms and terraces along the larger streams can- 
not be surpassed for corn jiroduction. The bluSs, knol>s and hills of the 
driftless area along the Ohio have been found favoraijle for the growing of 
apples, peaches, grapes and other fruits. The marshes of the Northern 
Plain, when properly drained, yield large crops of hay, corn and celery. 
Although among the states Indiana ranks thirty-fourth in area, she was 
in 1889 seventh in the production of cereals and of corn, and fourth 
in the production of wheat. 

Settlement .\xd Population 

Settlement from the Middle and Southern states began along the Ohio 
early in the present century and extended northward. Forty years later 
a stream of New England and New York people came into the northern 
l>art. The total population in 1890 was 2,192,404, of which only 18 per 
cent, live in cities, and less than seven per cent, are foreign-born — chieHy 
German. The map shows how closely the distribution of population 
corresponds to physical conditions, the areas of relatively spai-se popula- 
tion including (1) most of the driftless area and the rugged and broken 
region of the Ohio slope, except the coal fields and best fruit growing 
region; (2) the iirairies and marshes of the Kankakee basin, and (3) the 
roughest portion of the high moraine in the northeast. The influence of 
Chicago is shown in the northwest corner by the presence of a denser popu- 
lation in a region physically unfavorable. A closer analysis would proba- 
bly show an area of excess in the manufacturing districts of the gas field. 



IV.— THE GLACIAL DEPOSITS OF INDIANA =^= 

I'llANK I.KVKliKTT, F. U. S. A. UNITED STATER GEOLOGICAL SURVEY 
IXTRODrCTORY 

In Inilinna, the glacial deposits and scorings have been recognized 
from the earliest days of settlement; indeed, it is in this state that we 
find about the first recognition in America of the boulders as erratics 
and of striitt as products of ice action. So long ago as 1828, granite and 
other rocks of distant derivation were observed by geologists near New 
Harmony, in the southwestern part of the state. f At nearly as earlv a 
date (1842), striie were noted near Richmond, in the eastern part of the 
state.:,: 

Notwitlistanding the early date at which observations of glacial action 
began, very little attention was given to the drift, here or elsewhere, 
until within the past twenty years. It was commonly passed over in 
geological reports much as the soil is even to-day, with some casual re- 
mark concerning its presence in great or small amount. Within the 
past twenty years interest in these deposits, because ot the varied his- 
tory which they reveal, has been so aroused, that many geologists, both 
in America and Europe arc making a systematic study of them. 

In Indiana these dejiosits are engaging the attention of both the State 
and the United States Survey. The study of general features and a coiri- 
parative study of the drift of Indiana and neighboring states has been 
undertaken by the United States Survey, while the detailed examina- 
tion of tleposits has been entered upon by the State Survey. Professor 
T. C. Chamberlin has superintended the United States Survey work and 
has himself spent considerable time in Northern and Western Indiana. 
Under his direction Professor G. F. Wright and Professor .1. C". Branner, 
have investigated the glacial boundary; Professor L. C. Woostcr has 
studied the ilistrict north of the Kankakee, and the writer has made a 



'Mule Conci-rning llif GInrial Bmindanj.—Tunhev study during thf SL'a.son o( 1.SB6 by Jlr. I.oveivtt 
nnil Messrs. Ashley and Siebcnthal of the Indiana Geological Survey has deterniiued the occurrence 
of glacial drift I's fur sf)uth as the revised line shown on nuip on page 20. 

tSee Geology of Indiunii, 1878, |i|i. 10.5-liHS. 

JSec Anier. Jour. Sei., Vol. XLIV, l!yl:!-:i, pp. 2>ii-.iii:!. 



30 STUDIES IX INDIANA GEOGRAPHY 

reconnoissance of nearly all the drift-covered part of the state. Professor 
Wright's results have already been published in the United States Geological 
Survey bulletin, No. 58, issued in 1890. Professor Chamberlin's earlier 
results are set forth in his paper on the "Terminal Moraine," in the Third 
Annual Report of the United States Geological Survey for 1881-82. The 
later results of his studies and those of Professors Branner, Wooster and 
the writer, are largely unpublished. Through the courtesy of Professor 
Chamberlin the writer is permitted to .set forth some of the leading results 
in this paper. 

The work of the State Survey has not been uniform. Portions of it 
have been less detailed than that of the United States Survey, while 
other portions have been carried into greater detail. Probably the most 
detailed and careful study of any considerable area is that made by Dr. 
C. R. Drj'er in the northeastern part of the state.* An examination of 
the reports of the Indiana Geological Survey will serve to set forth these 
difterences and to show the importance of extending the detailed study of 
glacial deposits over all the glaciated portions of the state. Such a study 
probably can be carried on to the best advantage under the organization 
of a State Survey. But independent workers can do much to throw 
light on these deposits by collecting the records of well-borings and by 
careful notes taken at natural or artificial exposures. 

Befoi-e entering upon the discussion of the Indiana drift a few words 
of explanation seem necessary concerning the material of" the drift, and 
concerning the gathering grounds of the ice which overspread this region. 

Materials of the Drift 

It is quite a prevalent idea that the boulders which strew the surface 
of the glaciated districts and which have suffered transportation from 
distant regions, constitute the most impressive evidence of ice action. 
It seems by many not to be understood that the thick deposits of stony 
clay with associated beds of sand and gravel which blanket the North 
Central States to a dejith of 100, 200, and occasionally 500 feet, are 
also due to ice transportation. Over a large part of the country from the 
Dakotas eastward to the Appalachian ranges, these deposits are so tliick 
that ordinary wells fail to reach their bottom, and many of the valleys 
of the large streams are formed entirely in them. The boulders in real- 
ity constitute but an insignificant portion, for probably ninety-five per 
cent, of the drift of these states consists of minute rock fragments and 
sand and clay, and of the remaining five per cent, only a small part is 
made up of large blocks of distant derivation; i. e., of boulders proper. 

An examination of rocks in the drift mass will usually disclose a large 
jDercentage of material which has not been transported far, but there is 



''See sixteenth, seventeenth and eigliteenth reports of State Geologist. 



THE GLACIAL DEPOSITS OF INDIANA 31 

usually to be found a sprinkling of rocks from distant loialities. Ix't the 
reader select some space, say a scjuare yard, in a gravel jiit or other ex- 
posure and set about classifying the several kinds of rocks rejjresented, 
and he will ascertain the relative amount of local and distant material. 

In its bedding the drift displays great irregularity. In general, it con- 
sists of a confused mass of angular, semi-angular, and well-rounded stones 
imbedded in a matrix of sandy clay. This confused mass was named 
till by Scottish geologists, and this term has been adopted by American 
geologists. By some it is called boulder clay, because of its containing 
boulders. With the till one can lind, in many exposures, beds or pockets 
of sand and gravel. These beds in some cases comprise the entire section, 
but they are usually subordinate to the till. 

In some parts of the glaciated districts the till ('onstitutes the lower 
part of the drift, while the sand and gravel lie mainly near the surface. 
In Indiana such a relationship does not prevail over wide areas. The 
drift dei)osits of this state are unusually varied in the arrangements of 
till sheets, gravel beds and sand beds; what is true of one township may 
find no application in a neighboring one. 

Farther on we shall discuss the evidence upon which is based the con- 
clusion that there are in Indiana drift-sheets differing widely in age. 

GL.A.riATED RoCK SURFACES 

Tlu' peculiar appearances i)resented by rock surfaces which have been 
abraded by the ice-sheet are usually of such a striking nature as to arrest 
the attention of untrained as well as of trained observers. These surfaces 
differ somewhat fron) place to place but still have a characteristi*; appear- 
ance. They present, usually, a series of parallel, or but slightly divergent 
lines or grooves, varying in size from faint scratches as fine as a hair, to 
broad, shallow grooves an inch or two, and occasionally .several inches 
in width. Uetween the grooves the rock has usually been scoured down 
to a plane surface. The stria' indicate, as a rule, the general course of 
ice-movement and with few exceptions point toward the margin presented 
l)y the ice-sheet at the time they were formed. 

As the ice-sheet was subject at times to excessive wastage, if not to com- 
plete destruction, followed by readvance in which some shifting of move- 
ment occurred, we find the stria> showing some interesting variations in 
neighboring localities. Some of the best illustrations in America are to 
be found in Western Indiana and these arc discussed farther on. 

The Glacial Gatuekinu Grounds 

On the glacial maj) of North America are shown the extent of glacia- 
tioii, and the several main centers of dispersion; viz., the Cordilleran, 
Keewatin, Labrador and (Greenland. The glaciated districts in North 
G— 3 



1 



:!2 STUDIES IN INDIANA GEOGRAPHY 

America are estimated to cover 4,000,000 square miles. It is doubtful, 
howev.er, if this entire area was covered by the ice-sheet at any one time. 
Dr. G. M. Dawson, director of the Canadian Geological Survey, has found 
evidence that the Cordilleran ice-field overspread the Rocky Mountains 
and extended some distance to the east and then withdrew before the 
Keewatin ice-sheet had reached that region.* 

Similarly the Keewatin ice-sheet culminated and withdrew from its 
southern limits (in Missouri and Iowa) before the Labrador ice-field had 
reached its extreme western limits. The writer has found that the Lab- 
rador movement extended into Southeastern Iowa at a date considerably 
later than the time when the Keewatin ice-sheet withdrew ; there being 
a soil and other evidences of an interval found on the surface of the Kee- 
watin drift and under the drift of the Labrador sheet. It should be 
understood, however, that the reduction in size of the Cordilleran and 
Keewatin sheets at the time of the culmination of the Labrador sheet, 
may ha\e amounted to but a small percentage of the area which they 
had covered. 

Greenland is now ice-covered while districts to the west which have 
been ice-covered are nearly free from glaciers. The continuation of gla- 
ciation there parallels the observations in the fields to the wpst and adds 
to the weight of these observations in indicating a progressive culmina- 
tion of the ice-sheet from west to east. 

Aside from the four main gathering grounds there appear to have 
been minor gathering grounds in the extreme east on New Brunswick 
and on Nova Scotia as indicated by Mr. Robert Chalmers in his paper in 
the Annual Report of the Canadian Survey for 1894. There were also 
small ice-fields on the Rocky and Sierra Nevada Mountains in the West- 
ern United States, as described many years ago by King, Whitney and 
others. 

The Glacial Succession in Indiana 

Fird Ice Invasion. — This state was invaded by ice which had as its cen- 
ter of disi^ersion the elevated districts to the east and south of Hudson Baj\ 
There was a movement from the region north of Lake Huron in a course 
west of south over the Lake Michigan basin, Illinois and Western 
Indiana. There was also a southward movement from the same region 
across Lakes Huron and Erie, Western Ohio and Eastern Indiana. It is 
not known w'hether these movements were independent and of different 
dates or whether there was simply a radiation in movement of a single 
ice accumulation. It should not be taken for granted that even within 
the state of Indiana the ice-sheet was occupying the glacial boundary 
comijletely at any one time. 



*BuUetiu of the Gcol. Soe'y of .America, Vol. VII, pp. lil-iiii, November, 18ii.5. 



34 STUDIES IN INDIANA GEOGRAPHY 

The ice depos^ited but little drift near its extreme limits, either in In- 
diana or tlie states to the west. There is not, as a rule, a well defined 
ridge or thick belt of drift along the glacial boundary, such as character- 
izes the southern limit of some of the later drift-sheets, though occasional 
ridging of drift is to be seen, as in Chestnut Ridge in Jackson county* 
and a similar ridge in Southern Morgan county. The boundary of the 
drift in Indiana is usually so vague and ill defined that it is only ap- 
proximately known. 

If we may judge of the deposit over the state from the outlying por- 
tions, south of deposits made by later invasions, the deposits of the first 
invasion are of much less volume than those of later invasions. They 
appear to include not more than 30 of the 130 feet which the writer 
estimates the state to carry. In the portion of the state which was 
glaciated l:)ut once the thickness is usually less than 25 feet, but filled 
valleys will probably give it an average somewhat above that amount. 
What is true of the drift of the earliest invasion in Southern Indiana is 
true also of the same drift of Southern Illinois and Southwestern Ohio. 
This invasion seems, therefore, to be quite widely characterized by a 
lighter deposition than that of the later invasions. 

First Interglacial Interval. — After reaching the line marked by the glacial 
boundary, the ice melted away and left the drift exposed to atmospheric 
agencies. How far to the north the land Ix'came uncovered is not known. 
At this time a black soil was formed, which is now concealed benca,th 
deposits of silt, termed loess, in Southern Indiana, and beneath later 
deposits of till in the northern portion of the state. This soil is found 
at the base of the loess at various points over the southern portions of 
the state, but is best developed on flat tracts. It may be seen beneath 
the loess in the flat districts east and south of Terre Haute at a depth of 
from six to eight feet. The vegetaljle matter appears to have accuuiulated 
there just as it does on the present surface of poorly drained tracts in 
northern latitudes, where decay is slower than accumulation. In West- 
ern Indiana, from Parke and Vermillion counties northward, the soil is 
found below a later sheet of till at depths varying from twenty feet up to 
one hundred feet or more. Numerous references to the soil below till in 
this portion of the state are to be found in the "Indiana Geological Reports." 
it has not been observed in Eastern Indiana, so far as the writer is aware, 
but may be present, for few valleys there reach low enough to expose it. 
It seems not to be so conspicuous, however, as in Western Indiana, other- 
wise it would have been brought to notice in well-borings. 

No conclusions have been reached concerning the length of time in- 
volved in the formation of this soil. The land at that time seems to have 
been so low or so flat in Indiana, that drainage lines were not well 



*Geologyof Indiana, 1S71, pp. 5ii-57. 



T!1K (IT.ACIAL liKPOSITS OF INDIANA 35 

dovoloped in tlio diil't suil'iicc, anil we arc thus (k'ju-ived of one iMi])or- 
tant means of estimating the work accomplished. 

Main Tjoc.<i Depositing Singe. — Loess is a term aiti)lied to a fino-<;rain('d 
yellowish silt or loam, which overspreads the southern jwrtion of the gla- 
cial drift in North America, and extends thence soutliward on the bor- 
ders of the Mississippi \'alloj- to the shores of the (!ulf of Mexico. The 
term was oi'iginally api>lied to deposits of this cliaracter on the Rhine, 
which have very extensive development in the fierman lowlands and 
bordering ilistriets in Xorthern Europe. Mieroscojiical analysis shows 
it to consist princijially of (piartz grains, but it usually has a variety of 
other minerals such as occur in the glacial dril't. It is apparently de- 
rived from the drift, either by the action of water or wind. In many 
places, especially on the borders of the large valleys, the loe.ss is charged 
with calcareous matter which iiartially cements it. When excavations 
are made in it the banks will stand for years, and will retain inseri])tions 
nearly as well as the more consolidated rock formations. It has a strong 
tendency to vertical cleavage, and usually presents nearly perpendicular 
banks on the borders of streams which erode it. It often contains con- 
cretions or irregular nodules of lime and of iron and manganese oxides. 
It is also often highly fossiliferous. The fo.ssils are usually land and 
fresh-water mollusks, but occasionally insects and bones of mammals are 
founil. 

The deposit appears to be mainly of one stage in the glacial ]ieriod, 
and has been delinitely correlated l)y Mr. W. .1. McGee with an ice in- 
vasion which followed the interglacial stage just discussed.* In the 
region which Mr. McGee studied, in Northeastern Iowa, it connects on 
the north with a sheet of till called by him the upper till, and afterwards 
named by Profes-sor Chambcrlin, the lowan Drift-Sheet. The writer has 
visited that region and fullj' concure with Mr. McGee's opinion. This 
drift-sheet has not been recognized in Indiana, for if present it lies 
entirely within the limits of a later invasion and the later deposits have 
concealed it. 

There is, in Western Indiana along the Waliash, a loess of more recent 
date than the main deposit, but it is contined to low altitudes, seldom ap- 
pearing more than one hundred feet above the river level. In Western 
Illinois, a loess has been found which is older than the main deposits, 
but it has been seen in only a few places and is a{)parcntly a thin and 
patchy deposit. It is thought by Professor Salisbury that the loess of 
the lower ;Mississi])pi was deposited at two distinct stages. Loess is, 
therefore, a deposit which, like sand or gravel, may l)e laid down when- 
ever conditions are favorable, but tlie great bulk of it having been dc- 
I)osited at a definite stage of the glacial period, it seems proper to refer to 
that stage as the Loess stage. 

"ElcVLMilh Animiil Report, U. S. Oeol. Sun'cy, 1889-90, pp. 4,'»-471. 



3f) STUDIES IN INDIANA GEOGRAPHY 

In Soiithoni Indiana, and in bordering portions of Southern Ohio and 
Soutliern Illinois, there is a continuous sheet of pale silt locally termed 
" white clay," which is thought to be a phase of the loess, though more 
clayey and less uniform in texture than typical loess. It covers the 
interfluvial tracts as far north as the limits of a later sheet of drift, and 
has been discovered at a few places beneath that later drift. It probably 
extended much farther north than its present exposed limits, for the ice- 
sheet appears to have receded far to the North at tlie maii\ loess deposit- 
ing stage, thus leaving the surface free to receive these deposits. The 
northern limit of the exposed portion in Indiana is marked by the 
" Wisconsin boundary," shown on the Glacial Map of Indiana. This 
deposit is usually but a few feet in thickness, seldom exceeding eight 
feet. Along the Waljash, however, where it becomes a typical loess it 
often reaches a thickness of twenty to twenty-five feet. It may he readily 
distinguished from the underlying till both by texture and color. It 
contains only very minute rock fragments, while tlie till is thickly set 
with stones of all sizes. In color it is a paler yellow than the till. 
There is usuall}', also, a weathered zone at the top of the till and some- 
times a black soil, making still more clear the line of contact. 

Tlie loess and its associated silts is found at all altitudes in Southern 
Indiana; from the low tracts near the Wabash, scsircely 400 feet A. T., 
up to the most elevated tracts in Southeastern Indiana, which in places 
exceed 1,000 feet A. T. The great range in altitude is one of the most 
puzzling features of the loess. The same perplexing distribution is 
found in Europe as in America. As yet no satisfactory solution for the 
prolilem of its deposition at such widely different altitudes has been 
found. 

Tiiterijlnclal Stage FoUmnng the Loess Deposition. — Between the main de- 
position of loess and the invasion of Northern Indiana by a later ice- 
sheet, considerable time elapsed ; for we find that the drainage lines 
have reached a much more advanced stage on the loess-covered districts 
south of the deposits of the later ice-sheets than they have upon those 
deposits. It is found that large valleys had been opened in the loess 
and the underlying drift Ijefore the streams from the later ice-sheet 
brought their deposits into the valleys. This interval of valley-erosion 
is thought by several who have had opportunity to study it, including 
the present writer, to Ije longer than the time which has elajjsed since 
the ice-sheet last occupied Northern Indiana. 

The question has been raised, whether the greater amount of erosion 
outside the later drift may not have been due to streams of large vol- 
ume which accompanied the later ice invasion. That this is only a 
minor influence, is shown by the fact that valleys in Southern Illinois 



TIIK (JLACIAL DEPOSITS OF INDIANA 37 

whicli Ho cnliivly outsi.K' the ivach of .such waters are much larger than 
valleys of similar drainage areas within the limits of the later drift-sheet. 

It cannot be urged that the region with the smaller valleys is less 
favored by slopes or stream gradients than the region with well-developed 
valleys, for the reverse is the case. There are large areas within the 
loess-covered districts which do not possess the reliefs and other con- 
ditions favorable for the rapid development of drainage lines which appear 
in much of the newer drift. In short, there appears no escape from the 
view, that the interval between the loess deposition and the later ice 
invasion was a long one. 

T/ir U'!.-<nin4n SOtcjc of Glnciatwn.—M'Wr the interglaeial interval just 
menti.uie.l, there occurred one of the most important stages of glaciation 
in the entire glacial period. It is marked by heavier deposits of drift 
than those made at any other invasion. Throughout much of its south- 
ern boundary in the United States, a prominent ridge of drift is to be seen 
rising in placets to a height of 100 feet or more above the outlying 
districts on the south, and merging into plains of drift on the north, 
which are nearly as elevated as its crest. 

At this time the ice reached its farthest extension in New England, 
and also in much of the district between New England and the Scioto 
river in Ohio. From the Scioto we.stward, however, it usually fell far 
short of extending to the limits of the earliest ice invasion. In Illinois 
it fell short about one hundred miles and in Iowa a still greater distance, 
but projected into the edge of the Driftless Area in Wisconsin. Partly 
because of this development in Wisconsin, Professor Chamberlin has 
called it the Wisconsin Drift Sheet. The limits of this ice invasion 
appear on the map of North America. 

The southern border of this drift-sheet is less conspicuous in Indiana 
than in the states to the east and west. The ridge on its southern 
border in Western Indiana rises scarcely twenty feet above the outer 
border tracts, and it is no more conspicuous in Central Indiana. Indeed, 
from near (ireencastle to tlie vicinity of Columbus there is not a well 
defined ridging of drift along the border; the limits ther(> being deter- 
mined l>y the concealment of the loess beneath a thin sheet of bouldery 
drift. From the east border of East White river a few miles below 
Columbus, northeastward to Whitewater valley at Alpine in Southern 
Favette county, there is a sharjily defined ridge of drift standing twenty 
to "forty feet above outer border tracts. Upon cro.ssing Wiiitewater, 
where the border leads southeastward, it is not so well defined as west 
of the river, though there is usually a ridge about twenty feet in height. 

Although not conspicuous in Indiana by its relief, this border is 
about as clearly defined as anywhere in the United States. Within tlie 
space of a half dozen steps one will pass from loess-covered tracts of 



38 STUDIES IN INDIANA GEOGRAPHY 

earlier drift to the lioulderj- drift of this later invasion. Accompanying 
the change from loess to bouldery drift, tliere is a change in the color of 
the soil from a pale yellowish or ashy color to a rich black. This line is 
one of great agricultural importance. The district lying to the north is 
finely adapted to corn and timothy, while that to the south seems poorly 
adapted to these crops. The southern district when uncultivated soon 
becomes thickly covered with briers, a feature which is not common on 
the black soil of the Irouldery drift. In this connection we would 
remark, that while the loess has usually great fertility, the compact loess 
of Southeastern Indiana is adapted only to certain products. It seems 
as well adapted to wheat, orchards, and small fruits as the Idack soil, and 
there appears to be an appreciation on the part of the i-esidents of this 
restricted adaptability. 

Between the time when the ice-sheet stood at the line just discussed, 
and the final disappearance of the ice from Indiana, several moraines 
were formed. The best defined ones are indicated on the accomjianying 
State map. In a few places not indicated on the map, weak morainic 
lines have been observed bi;t their courses and connections have not been 
fully determined. 

These moraines indicate considerable complexity of movement, it will 
be observed that several moraines lead eastward from Illinois into Warren 
and Benton counties Indiana, and that their eastern ends are crossed by 
weaker morainic belts carrying many lioulders. These features appear 
to indicate that after the former moraines had been made and the ice had 
retreated some distance northward, there was a readvance of ice from the 
northeast to the line marked by the outer boulder belts. It is as yet 
undecided whether much of an interval of deglaciation preceded this 
advance, Imt there was apparently a great shifting of ice-movement. 

The prominent moraines which are overridden in Benton and Warren 
counties may find a continuation eastward in a belt of very thick drift 
which crosses Central Indiana from Benton county eastward, but which 
has not the definite ridges which are to be seen from Benton county 
westward. This belt of thick drift in Indiana is fifteen to thirty miles 
wide, and has a thickness perhaps three times as great as the general 
thickness of drift in bordering districts north and south of it. The aver- 
age thickness is fully 200 feet. It leads south of east across Tippecanoe 
and Clinton counties to Western Tipton county where it turns abruptlj' 
southward through Eastern Boone and Western Hamilton counties and 
Marion count}% coming to White river in the vicinity of Indianapolis. 
It there turns eastward and passes through Hancock, Henry and North- 
ern Wayne and Southern Randolph counties into Ohio. The belt of 
thick drift was apparently overridden by the later advance. The weak 
moraines and boulder belts of the later advance cross it obliquely in a 



THE GLACIAL DEPOSITS OF INDIANA 39 

northwest to southeast course in Western Indiana, ami return in a north- 
eastward course to it in Henry, Wayne, and Randolpli counties. 

This later advance ajiparently extended as far southwest as the boul- 
dery moraine of Central Hendricks couuty and the houldery niorainic 
tracts of Southern Johnson and Southern Shelby counties. Its north- 
west limits were perhaps at the curvin<r belt in Inxjuois county, Illinois, 
and Newton and .lasper counties, Indiana, thouf,di there was possibly 
only a reentrant angle at that line with a I.ake Michigan ice-lobe on the 
northwest. 

From this outer limit of the later advance the ice-sheet api>ears to have 
shrunk on all sides until its limits on tiie northwest were at the moraine 
which lies along the north side of the Wabash in the vicinity of Logans- 
port, and at the southwest were near the dotted line indicated on the 
Indiana map, leading from White county southeast to the vicinity of 
Inilianapolis. It is in the district southwest of the latter line that feeble 
moraines and patches of boulders are found crossinii over the great belt 
of drift in oblique courses. From near Indianapolis, the line marking 
this later position of the last invasion, as shown on the map, leads east- 
ward to the strong belt in Southeastern Delaware county. 

There appears to have been at the stage just outlined, a lake bordering 
the ice on the northwest in which the deposits of sand were made which 
form such a conspicuous feature in Northwestern Indiana from Cass and 
White counties northwestward to the moraine north of the Kankakee. 
It seems probalile that the eastern and northern, as well as the south- 
eastern limits of this lake were determined by the ice, for we find that 
the sandy districts terminate at moraines on these borders. 

The moraine leading northward from Northern Fulton county through 
Western Marshall and St. Joseph counties, would in that case, be about 
contemporaneous with the moraine on the north side of the Wabash in 
Southwestern Fulton, :Miami, Cass, Carroll and White counties, and both 
would be of about the same date as the strong moraine lying north of the 
Kankakee. These correlations are not, however, fully established and 
should be taken simjjly as a working hypothesis to be tested by future 
developments in the study of that region. 

In Northeastern Indiana, moraines appear along the north border of 
the Mississinewa, Salamonie, Wabash and St. Mary's rivers, which were 
apparently formed in succession as the ice was wasting away after its last 
advance. These moraines are traceable eastward across Northern Ohio 
and northeastward into Southeastern IMichigan and mark successive 
limits of a lobe of ice which flowed southwestward across the Erie and 
Maumee basins. This ice-lobe appears to have pereisted at the line of the 
outer of these four belts to a date when there was open country on the 
northwest, for the drainage lines lead from this mt)rainic belt northwest 
to the St. Joseph river, passing across the moraines of the intervening 



40 STUDIES IN INDIANA GEOGRAPHY 

district, as they would scarcely have done had the ice persisted there as 
long as in the Erie lobe.* 

Having traced the ice-sheet to its final disappearance from Indiana, the 
reader ma}' find in Mr. Taylor's "History of the Great Lakes" f a contin- 
uation of the events incident to the retreat of the ice toward Labrador. 

Succession of Ice Invasions Shown by Drift Deposits 

The evidence of difference in the age of the drift, shown by erosion of 
its surfoce, has been discussed. Other lines of evidence of successive in- 
vasions have been recognized. One of the most interesting and signifi- 
cant is the presence, in a vertical section, of sheets of drift showing difler- 
ences of age and of derivation. Such sections are occasionally seen along 
streams, and are frequently brought to light by wells. Professor Cham- 
berlin has presented as the frontispiece illustration in Geikie's last edition 
of " The Great Ice Age," such a section found on Stone creek near Will- 
iamsport in Warren county, Indiana. There is exposed at the base, a 
reddish till of the earliest drift upon which there rests a bed of old fer- 
ruginous gravel. This gravel is overlain by a fresh blue till, which is 
apparently of the age of the moraines which lead into that county from 
the west. Above this till is another gravel bed much fresher than the 
one below. Above the gravel is a gray till, which was apparently depos- 
ited by the ice at the time w'hen it fronted southwest, and had its ter- 
minus at the boulder belt which crosses Warren county from north to 
south just west of the place where this section is exposed. 

Succession of Ice Invasions Shown by Stride 

The stria3 of Western Indiana, as may be seen by the maps, are widely 
different in their bearings. Until the several ice invasions had been rec- 
ognized they were a puzzling feature ; but they are now found to support 
the other lines of evidence of such invasions. Perhaps the best illustra- 
tion is to be found near Williamsport. There are found in this village 
two sets of striaa ; one bearing southeast and belonging apparently to the 
earliest invasion; another bearing southward and belonging apparently 
to the same invasion which formed the bulky moraines in that vicinity. 
Two miles east of Williamsport, on the north side of the Wabash, Pro- 
fessor Chamberlin found a third set of stria;, with westward bearing, 
which apparently pertain to the last invasion of the ice. 

At Monon and near Kentland, strite of two distinct sets appear. The 
latest bear westward and belong, apparently, to the last ice invasion. 
The date of the earlier, southward-bearing striic, is as yet undetermined. 

Thickness of the Drift 

There are surprising differences in the thickness of the drift within 

"See 18th Report lud. State Geologist, pp. 29, 89. 
t See page 90. 



THE GLACIAT. DEPOSITS OF INDIANA 41 

tlie stati'. Tlie jjortion of Iho ulder drift oxposeil to view lia.s, :is already 
noted, an average thickness of about thirty feet. The additional 100 
feet of the newer drift is, however, deposited very irregularly. In the 
belt of thick drift which leads from Benton countv .southea.st to Marion 
county, and tluMicc east into Ohio, the thickness is probably 200 feet. 
The portion of the newer drift area to the south of this belt has an aver- 
age of about fifty to seventy-five feet. A still larger tract extending 
north from this belt-of thick drift as far as Allen county and the west- 
llowing ])ortion of the Wabash, has only fifty to seventy-five feet with 
limited areas where its thickness is but twenty to thirty feet. In North- 
w-estern White, Southwestern Pulaski, and Southern Jasper counties 
there are several townships in which scarcely any drift appears except- 
ing boulders and sandy deposits. In Northern Indiana the drift is very 
thick. Its average thickness for fifty miles south of the north boundary 
(if the state is probably not less than 250 feet, and may exceed 300 feet. 
At Kcndallville it is 485 feet, and at several cities on the moraine which 
leads northeast from Fulton county to Steuben county, its thickness has 
been shown by gas borings to exceed 300 feet. The rock is seldom 
reached in that region at less than 200 feet. Were the drift to be 
stripjied from the northern portion of Indiana its altitude would be about 
as low as the surface of Lake Michigan, though much of the present sur- 
face is 200 to 300 feet above the lake. 



W— THE ERIE-WABASH REGION 

(liARLKS R. DRYKR 

Thu Erie-Wabash Region is a broad, shallow trough extending from 
the west end of Lake Erie southwest ward across Ohio to Central Indiana. 
An inspection of the aeconiitanying map will show tliat it is bounded on 
the south by the divide between the tributaries of the Ohio and tliose of 
the Maumee and Wabash, and on the northwest by a belt of hills fcjrin- 
ing in part the divide between the Maumee and Wabash drainage and 
that of Lake Michigan. From Lake Erie the valley bottom rises about 
200 feet in 100 miles to a summit near Fort Wayne, and then declines 
westward, reaching again the level of Lake Erie near Logansport, a dis- 
tance of sixty miles. The elevation of the southern rim lies mostly 
between 400 and 500 feet above Lake Erie, while its northern rim rises 
to an equal height in the hills of Northeastern Indiana. Its width from 
north to south is a little over 100 miles. This region presents some 
unique and anomalous features, and exhibits a continuity and uniform- 
ity of structure which mark it as an interesting physical unit, its pecu- 
liarities are most clearly revealed by its drainage. 

Drainage 

An inspection of the map shows that the axis of the trough is travereed 
by one uninterrupted river channel, o(cui)ied, however, by different 
streams; from Lake Erie to Fort Wayne l\y the Maumee, thence for 
about ten miles Ijy a marsh (now drained), thence by the Little Wabash 
to the main Wabash, and thence by the latter river. Down the sides of 
the trough flow eight streams of considerable size, four of them arranged 
opposite each other in pairs — the Blanchard-Auglaize and theTillin, the 
St. Mary's and the St. Joseph. The series on the south is continued at 
regular intervals by the upper Wabash (above Huntington), the Sala- 
monie and the Mississinewa; but on the north the divide is too near to 
permit the presence of any large stream except the EeJ, which flows more 
nearly parallel with the axial stream. The drainage system as a whole 
is almost sagittate, like an unsym metrical spear-head with five barbs. 
Tlie general cour.-<e of these streams is toward the western end ot the 
trough, and normally all ought to be tributaries of the Wal)asli, yet four 



44 STUDIES IN INDIANA GEOGRAPHY 

turn back upon themselves in a remarkably manner. The St. Mary's, 
after flowing northwestward sixty miles, and the St. Joseph, after flowing 
southwestward eighty miles, unite to form the Maumee, which then turns 
abruptly to the northeast, so that at Fort Wayne the St. Joseph changes 
its direction more than 160 degrees. The Blanchard-Auglaize flows west- 
ward from Findlay about fifty miles, and then by a broad curve nearly 
reverses its direction. The headwaters of all the southern rivers start 
directly toward the axis of the trough and Lake Erie, to the northeast, 
but after a few miles, apparently meet some oljstruction and turn at right 
angles to the northwest. On their right banks tributaries are conspicu- 
ous by their absence or brevity. The Maumee from Fort Wayne to Defi- 
ance is a sluggish and very meandering stream flowing in a trench thirty 
to fifty feet deep and without any flood plain. On the south all the 
streams within thirty miles rise near the St. Mary's and flow parallel with 
the Maumee into the Auglaize. On the north side of the trough the 
drainage is ahnost equally peculiar. All the tril)utaries of the Tiffin are 
on the west side, and rise within two or three miles of the St. Joseph. 
The drainage area of the St. Joseph is, likewi.se, on its right Ijank only, 
and some of its longer tributaries, like Cedar and Fish creeks, have a 
habit of flowing parallel witli it for half their course, and then turning 
toward it. To join the Aboit or the Eel would seem a more natural 
course for them. In short, the Erie-Wabash trougli does not slope from 
one end toward the other, as river valleys usually do, but from the mid- 
dle toward Ijoth ends. The valleys of the larger streams have a very 
long slope on one side, and a very short one on the other; one-half the 
rivers flow toward, and the other half away from their final destination, 
and the smaller tributaries, rising near some river which they do not 
enter, seek a distant outlet by circuitous and troubled courses which 
make the maj) a puzzle worthy of Central Africa. 

Explanation 

It is the business of the scientific geographer to solve all such jjuzzles, 
and not to rest until the cause and origin of every phenomenon is ex- 
plained. He is not content with discovering, describing and mapping 
natural or artificial features, but proceeds to ask and answer, if possible, 
the question. How did these things come to be so? An expert geographer 
could now infer the principal features of relief and the main events in 
the history of the region from a map showing the streams only. It is 
easy to see that along the Erie side of each of the large tributaries of the 
Maumee and the Wabash a ridge of some kind must exist, forming a 
barrier and a divide. It is now much easier to guess the nature of 
these ridges than it was in 1870, when Mr. G. K. Gilbert, then a young 
geologist employed upon the Ohio survey, announced that he conceived 



THE ERIE-WABASH REGION 45 

the riilge along the Erie t<iile of the St. Joseph and St. Mary's rivers to 
be "the superficial representation of a terminal glacial moraine, that 
rests directly on the rockbed, and is covered by a heavy sheet of Erie 
clay — a subsequent a<iueous and iceberg deposit." This was the key to 
explain all the peculiarities of the region, and subsequent observers have 
had little more to do than to apply it. Since 1870 the whole complex 
morainic system which extends across the United States from Cape Cod 
to Dakota has been surveyed and mapped, and the relation of the ridges 
of the Erie-Wabash region to that system has been determined. 

MOR.UNES 

A glance at the map will show the peculiar form and arrangement of 
the moraines. They are seen to constitute a quite regular and symmet- 
rical series of crescentic ridges, parallel, in the main, with each other and 
with the southwest shores of Lake Erie. Upon the north side of the axis 
they are crowded together, straightened out and otherwise deformed. 

The Blanchanl-Tiffin Moraine, nearest to Lake Erie, and the youngest of 
the .series, probaljly never very massive, has been so modified by the 
action of lake waters as to be the least prominent of all, but an expert 
gbu'iali.st would have little difficulty in tracing its course across the 
otherwise level country from Adrain, Michigan to a point east of Cleve- 
land, Ohio. It is more conspicuous east of Findlay than west of that 
place, and in that stretch consists, according to Mr. Lcverett, of "a 
broadly ridged and slightly undulating tract of till (stony clay) standing 
twenty to forty feet or more above the plain south of it, and having a 
l)readth of one and one-half to three miles." From the point where it is 
crossed bj' the Leipsic beach to the Maumee the moraine has a compara- 
tively smooth surface. North of the JIaumee it occasionally spreads out 
into a broad tract of sand. It rises and falls in its course across the 
country paying little attention to levels, but varying between 730 feet 
above tide near Defiance to 1250 feet at its eastern end. 

The St. Man/s-St. Joseph Moraine is more massive and uniform than the 
one just described, yet it seldom presents any striking features which 
would attract the attention of the passing traveler. It is best seen upon 
the map by its influence upon the course of streams. " It is like a dead 
wave upon the surface of the ocean, hardly perceptible to the eye on 
account of its smoothness, but revealed by its efiect upon everything 
that encounters it." It is not, as Mr. Gilbert thought, a buried moraine, 
but the ridge he describes i-t the moraine from bottom to top. South of 
the Maumee its Erie slope is very gentle and merges imperceptibly into the 
plain. Its crest is fifty to eighty feet above the St. Mary's river to which 
it slopes more abruptly. Its surface is generally smooth but occasionally 
becomes rolling with bluft'y margins. It is composed almo.st entirely of 



46 STUDIES IN INDIANA GEOGRAPHY 

glacial clay, sand and gravel being very scarce. North of the Mauiuee 
the moraine is direct in its course, and its margins are sharply defined 
by the beach line on one side and the St. Joseph river on the other. It 
is four or five miles wide, fifty to seventy feet high and of the same 
structure as the southern portion. To the north, like all the rest, it con- 
nects with the moraine system in "the thumb" of Michigan. Its slope 
lengthwise is quite regular, from 800 feet above tide at Ft. Wayne to 900 
feet in Southern Michigan and at its eastern end in Ohio. 

The Wahash-Ahoit Moraine can be traced continuously a greater dis- 
tance than any of its neighbors, at least from Central Ohio westward 
into Indiana, and northwestward far into Southern Michigan. In gen- 
eral character it resembles the St. Mary's-St. Joseph moraine. The 
upper Wabash once followed its outer face from Celina to the axial chan- 
nel, but now turns away from it below BluflPton toward Huntington. 
The northern wing is much broader and more massive than the south- 
ern, and fills the space between the St. Joseph river and a half-filled 
valley partly occupied by the Aboit river, Cedar creek and the head- 
waters of Pigeon river. It is a rolling table-land, five to fifteen miles 
wide, about 100 feet above the St. Joseph and fifty feet above the valley 
on the west. Occupying the middle position in the series, it assumes 
some of the characteristic features of its neighbors on the west. Al- 
though its chief material is clay, it has a habit of rising here and there 
into abruj^t rounded hills or conical peaks of gravel fifty to one hundred 
feet above the general level, as at the elbow of Cedar creek" and in South- 
eastern Steuben county. These hilly portions are accompanied by small 
lakes, which become more numerous as the Michigan line is approached 
and passed. Fish and Clear lakes, both in Steuben county, and among 
the largest and most beautiful in Indiana, belong to this moraine. Like 
the rest, it rises from its apex, 870 feet above tide in Southwestern Allen 
county to 1100 feet in Michigan and 940 feet in Hardin county, Ohio. 

The Salamonie-Blue Moraine is easily traced upon the map from "the 
knot" near Kenton, Ohio, along the usual curve to Angola, Indiana, but 
compared with the others it is weak, diffused, and inconstant. In Hunt- 
ington county it is broken up into several strands and in Southern 
Whitley is represented by a belt of boulders. North of Eel river it can 
be distinguished from the general morainic mass only by its small fea- 
tures. It is a tumbled country; the hills, hollows, mounds, saucers and 
lakes are all there in great number and variety, but in miniature. - It 
contains however one lake of the larger class — Blue River lake in North- 
eastern Whitley. Its elevation varies from 800 feet in Huntington 
county to 1050 feet at Angola, and 1060 at St. Johns, Ohio. 

The Miasisdncira-Ecl Moraine surpasses the others in symmetry, and 
curving from "the knot" far southward, sweeps through a semicircle of 
I'ull 200 miles. If one wishes to see a terminal moraine in all its dis- 



Tin: ERIE- WABASH REGION 47 

tinguisliing pcculiavities, to get iiitimatelj' acquainted with all its moods 
and jihases so that he would 1)0 aV)le to recognize one if he came across it 
anywhere, ho cannot do better than to walk or drive over Whitley, 
Kohlc, Lagrange and Steuben counties, Indiana. The typical portion is 
from ten to twcnty-tive miles wide and sixty miles long. It is an irregu- 
lar, variously undulating pile of clay, sand, gravel and boulders with the 
coarser materials predominating. Its surface is 150 to 300 feet above the 
country on either side, and its total thickness down to bedrock from 200 
to 475 feet. Its topography defies verbal description in detail, but may 
be included under a few general types. The greater part of the area may 
be designated as crumpkd, resembling the surface of a sheet of paper 
which has been carelessly crushed in the hand and then spread out. The 
ridges have no particular direction, their tops are broad and slopes gentle, 
yet there is very little level ground. This type passes by insensible 
gradations into the corrugated, in which the ridges are steeper, sharper 
and arranged in somewhat parallel lines. Similar features very much 
exaggerated produce what may be called gouged or chmmed country, 
found in perfection southwest of Columbia City. The surface is entirely 
occupied by deep, irregular, elongated valleys, with narrow, sharp, wind- 
ing ridges between, all in indescribable confusion. The roads through 
it are very crooked in order to avoid the marshes, yet, in every direction, 
they are a series of steep descents and ascents. The relief might be imi- 
tated by taking a block of plastic clay and gouging it with some blunt 
instrument in as irregular a manner as possible. 

Scarcely more extreme and peculiar is the topography usually regarded 
as typical of terminal moraines, "the knob and basin." It consists of 
confused groups of dome-shaped or conical hills, often as steep and sharj) 
as the materials, usually sand and gravel, will lie, with hollows of corre- 
sponding shape lietween. The impression made is as if the material had 
been dumped from above and left as it fell, like gravel from a wagon. 
Some of the finest specimens in America occur south of Albion, in the 
Diamond Lake hills near Ligonier, east of Lagrange, in the northwest 
corner of Lagrange county, and the grandest of all, north of Angola, 
where the peaks rise to about 1200 feet. Throughout this morainic 
region the hollows or "kettle-holes" are occupied by marshes or lakes, 
the largest of which are shown upon the map. The number of such 
lakes in Indiana must be more than a thousand, and the marshes, or 
extinct lakes, out-number the living ones. A description of these will 
be given in another chapter. The last moraine, like the rest, rises 
towards its extremities, from TOO feet at La Gro to 1200 feet in Steuben 
county and 1100 feet in Ohio. 

The peculiar structure of the Erie- Wabash region may be summed up 
in the following statements: Between Lake Erie and Peru the Erie- 
Wabash trough is crossed by five morainic ridges, which sweep in wide 
G— 4 



48 STUDIES IN INDIANA GEOGRAPHY 

curves from one side to the other, paralled with each other and with the 
western shores of the lake. They vary in form from sagittate to cres- 
centic with their convexities to the southwest. Their apexes rise with 
the general slope of the trough from the first to the third, and fall from 
the third to the fifth, while the extremities of the wings rise successively 
to greater heights through the whole series. The northern wings are 
more massive and are crowded together, while the southern are more 
symmetrical and disposed at equal intervals except that between the first 
and second which is greater than the other intervals. The southern 
tributaries of the Wabash and Maumee flow along the outer faces of 
these moraines, the northern more irregularly follow the narrow intervals 
between them. The profile upon the right side of the map, drawn from 
Lagrange to Paulding and from Paulding to Ridgeville in order to cross 
northern and southern moraines and streams at right angles, shows these 
peculiarities in a striking manner. Thus is the strange behavior of the 
streams which has puzzled observers for a hundred years explained, l)ut 
only by substituting another puzzle in its place — that of the moraines. 
They remain to be accounted for, a problem which, like many others in 
geography, can be solved only by reading backwards into the remote 
history of the region. 

Physical History 

The studies of hundreds of geologists during the last twenty-five years 
have established the fact that a large part of North America was once 
covered by an ice-sheet which moved from its gathering grounds around 
Hudson Bay southwards to the Ohio and Missouri rivers.* The motion 
of the ice was always forward to the South, and its retreat was accom- 
plished bj' the melting back of the front edge; thus, even while the edge 
was retreating the ice itself was always moving forward. Sometimes it 
came faster than it melted, sometimes the supply just balanced the melt- 
ing, sometimes it melted faster than it came. The ice was thicker in the 
old valleys than upon the divides, and the valleys offered an easier course. 
Consequently it advanced farther in the valleys and retreated from them 
more slowly, and the sheet came to have a lobed or scalloped edge. The 
Erie-Maumee- Wabash valley contained one of these lobes which extended 
far into the heart of Indiana.f As the growing warmth of the climate 
melted it and the diminishing volume of the ice-stream from the North 
became insuiiicient to supply the waste, the edge slowxy retreated. The 
whole load of soil and stones which it had gathered on its way from Labra- 
dor was left evenly spread out over the old rock surface, as a sheet of drift 
or ground moraine. But its retreat was not continuous. For some unknown 
reason there were jjeriods when the supply of the ever-advancing stream 

'^See map, i». 33. 
tSeeiurtp, p. 28. 



THE ERIE- WABASH REGION 4!) 

was equal to the melting, and iluring such periods the edge remained sta- 
tionary along a certain line. In that case the melting ice dropped more 
of its perpetually arriving load at the edge than elsewhere, and thus built 
up a ridge or terminal moraine. Such a morainic ridge, then, marks the 
line at which the edge of the ice-sheet halted for a long period, and thus 
reveals to us the shape of the lobe. In the Krie-Wabash region a succes- 
sion of halts and retreats was performed with great regularity. The 
movements were like those of an army retreating in good order, which 
alternately throws up breastworks along its line of battle and abandons 
them to fortify another line farther back. To vary the simile a little, it 
is like an army ever advancing in .solid column, but on account of the 
hot fire of the enemy not a man ever gets beyond a certain line, and at 
intervals the head of the column fur a long distance back is wiped out. 
In such a case the distribution of liones, weapons and accoutrements 
would be precisely like that of the glacial drift. 

The story of events on the north side of the Erie ice lobe is a little dif- 
ferent. There it ran against the side of another ice lobe which moved 
from Saginaw Bay southwestward into Xorthern Indiana. Its advance 
was obstructed, the ice was piled up in a thicker mass and the retreat 
was slower. The results of this are evident in the greater massiveness, 
straightncss and crowding together of the moraines. The outermost 
moraine is tln^ joint i)n)duct of the Erie and Saginaw lobes, which ac- 
counts for its strongly marked features as before de.scribed. The line be- 
tween Eric and Saginaw drift can be approximately located as passing 
through Albion, north and northeast through the corner of the four coun- 
ties to the western border of the moraine in Northern Steuben. There is 
a notable dilference of topography, soil, forest and flora upon the two 
sides of it. The moraines shown upon the map west of this line belong 
to the Saginaw lobe, which was comparatively feeble and disappeared 
from the state earlier than the Erie. The glacial invasion of North- 
ea,stern Indiana is a story of advance in double but unequal columns; of 
prolonged struggle between them ; of defeat and evacuation on the part 
of the weaker forces, and of deliberate retreat on the part of the stronger 
from the field of battle. 

Glaci.\l Dk.\ix.\ge 

The melting ice, of course, furnished a large supi)ly of water, which in 
its escape, established not only the present drainage channels but many 
others now almndoned. The Eel River moraine contains scores of glacial 
drainage channels now partly filled with drift, and occupied by a lake, 
marsh or small stream. None of the present stream channels are older 
than the period of melting ice. The present streams frequently fail to 
fit the channels made bv the original swollen floods, and wander about 



50 STUDIES IX INDIANA GEOGRAPHY 

alternately in valleys much too wide for them, and in narrow ravines of 
their own cutting. The evidence is abundant that the Saginaw ice got 
out of the way first and left the country oi^en for free drainage from the 
Erie ice into the basins of the St. Joseph of Lake Michigan and the Kan- 
kakee. The Mississinewa and Eel rivers were born at the same time, 
but after the first step of retreat the latter was lengthened by the addition 
of the Blue river and kept its channel open through the moraine at 
Soutli Whitley. At this stage the Salamonie began. After the next re- 
treat the Upper Wabash carried the drainage of the ice front, assisted on 
the north by the Upper Pigeon river, possibly Fish creek and Cedar 
creek ; the latter probably joined the Aboit, since the Aboit Valley is 
far too large to be the work of the present short stream alone. When 
the ice retreated to the St. Mary's-St. Joseph moraine and the correspond- 
ing rivers came into existence, the Wabash received a considerable acces- 
sion to its length which placed its source in Southern Michigan. At 
this period the waters of the two rivers were carried southwestw ard 
through the Erie- Wabash channel, or, perhaps it is nearer the truth to 
say that these waters then cut that channel. 

Lake Maumee 

As soon as the ice-front began to retreat from this moraine and to un- 
cover the present Maumee Valley, the slope was toward the ice, and the 
water began to stand between the moraine and the ice-front in the form 
of a long, narrow lake. Although this lake found an outlet westward 
into the St. Joseph-Wabash, it grew in area and depth until an adjust- 
ment between the level of the outlet and the ice-wall of the glacier while 
it paused at the line of the Blanchard-Tiffin moraine, caused the lake to 
occupy a relatively permanent position. This was Lake Maumee, as 
odd in shape as in other conditions. It had for its eastern shore a wall 
of ice extending from Findlay through Defiance to Adrian, for its south- 
ern shore a beach of its own construction now called the Van Wert 
ridge, and for its northwestern shore the margin of the St. Joseph mo- 
raine, along which its waves built up a beach now known as the Hicks- 
ville ridge. It emptied its surplus waters through the Ft. Wayne outlet 
and Erie- Wabash channel into the present Wabash at Huntington, form- 
ing a river a mile wide and deej) enough to rival the present Niagara. 
This lake must have existed for many years or centuries, but could not 
be permanent : for the dam which held it up to that level was of ice. 
The ice continued to melt and retreat until an outlet was uncovered at 
a lower level in "the thumb" of Michigan, and the water began to fiow 
that way into Saginaw Bay. The lake level slowly fell, the Erie- Wabash 
river began to dwindle, its channel silted up, and finally, after the lake 
was completely drained, even the St. Joseph and St. Mary's turned back 



Tin: i;kiivAVabash region si 

through the gap ami tlie Maunice river wa.s born. A great thickness of 
fine clay had been deiiositcd in the bottom of the jrlacial hike, through 
which the Maumec and other streams had to cut their way. The surface 
was very level, and the sluggish streams had to wriggle over it in tor- 
tuous courses. To this day the old lake l>ottoni is one of the most diffi- 
cult areas in America to drain. 

Surface and Soil 

We are now prei)ared to account for the variety of surface and soil 
found in the Erie-Wabash region. Underneath it all is the ground 
imraine of rather stiff gravelly clay, similar to the general mass of the 
drift sheet, and forming the surface soil over the greater part of the area. 
Piled upon this are the terminal moraines, largely composed of the same 
materials but containing, locally, great heaps and masses of sand and 
gravel. Out of this the glacial and present streams have washed much 
of the finer material and deposited it in the old valleys and intermorainic 
intervals, some of which are nearly filled up; as, along the upper Pigeon 
river. Cedar creek and the head of Eel river. Innumerable hollows and 
depressions which at first contained shallow lakes, have been filled with 
vegetable growth and converted into marshes, or if sufficiently drained, 
muck lands, rich for grass and corn. The bottom of the glacial Maumee 
lake is an exceedingly fine tough clay to which, in many places, the 
growth and decay of vegetation have added improved qualities. 

CfLTURE 

The whole region was originally covered with a heavy growth of hard- 
wood forest, except the marshes, or so-called "wet prairies," and a few 
small tracts of genuine dry prairie in the northwest. No equal area has 
furnished more valuable timber, oak, walnut, beech, maple, ash, elm, 
sycamore, poplar, hickory, locust, cherry and others. For unknown 
centuries before the advent of the white man, the Indian hunted in the 
forests and fished in the lakes. The Maumee- ^\'abash was an important 
route of canoe travel between the CJreat Lakes and the Ohio. The carry 
or portage from the head of the Maumee over to the little stream which 
now occupies the Erie- Wabash channel, was short and easy, and in 1680 
LaSalle found there an Indian village and a fur-trading post. Here was 
a favorite congregating i)lace for men, savage and civilized, at the forks 
of four water-ways, and the spot was naturally jjredestined to be the site 
of an imjiortant town. It has j>assed through all the regular stages 
characteristic of so many American towns, Indian village and portage, 
trading post, military fort, modern city. It was as easy a route for 
the canal boat as for the canoe, and as early as 1834 the Wabash and 
Erie canal was constructed through it, having its summit level in the 



Steu\3enCo.,l\\(i. 



St■e^v\>eL•\\Co.,l^^(^.. 

UaUWxvVe 




*/.,.'» IJIIIWIBJIJ ,,.111)111^1, 




>W*P 



VI.— THE MORAINIC LAKES OF INDIANA 

CHARLES R. DRYER 

An intelligent young man onc-e told the writer that he had taught 
school in Indiana ten^vears witliout knowing tliat there was a lake in 
the state, vet his pupils probably learned something about Titicaca and 
Tanganyika. This is a not unusual case of the prevalent love of the re- 
mote which afflicts the teaching of geography. That there may be fewer 
such teachers and pupils in the future, is one of the objects of this paper. 

DlSTRIBfTIOX 

Nearly every map of Indiana shows some of the lakes but none gives 
an adequate idea of their number. They are most numerous in two 
belts; one extending from Steuben county to Fulton, the other from St. 
Joseph to Lake. An examination of the glacial map of Indiana* shows 
that these lake belts coincide with the great interlobate moraines formed 
between the Michigan, Saginaw and Erie ice lobes. There are very few 
lakes outside the area of influence of the Saginaw ice. The Indiana lakes 
are a part of the great morainic lake belt which extends from Cape Cod 
to Dakota, and in no portion of that belt are the lakes more numerous 
and characteristic. Steuben county, alone, contains more than one hun- 
dred, and the whole number in the state cannot be less than one thousand. 

Classification 

Glacial lakes are of two classes: (1) rock ba.iim, formed wholly ijr par- 
tially by glacial erosion; (2) drift basim, formed by the irregular deposit 
of drift. The former are very numerous in Canada, New England, Scot- 
land, Sweden, Finland and regions of ice accumulation generally. The 
latter are characteristic of regions of ice destruction and drift dei)Osition, 
as the North Central States, and North Germany and Russia. No glacial 
rock basin occurs in Indiana, and under the most of our lakes the drift 
is probably not less than one hundred feet deep. They all belong to the 
class which Davist has called lakes of obstruction, as distinguished from 
basins formed by construction or destruction. In general, they may be 
said to be due to the irregular deposit of glacial drift: the liollows or 

»Sce page 28. 

tProteedings Bostoa Society of Natural History. VoL XXI.. p. 31-'j. 



54 STUDIES IN INDIANA GEOGRAPHY 

basins being the counterparts and complements of the hills and knobs 
characteristic of terminal moraines. 

Penck* divides morainic lakes into, three classes: (1) Round, 
cauldron-shaped basins, known in this country as kettle-holes, or " potash 
kettles,"' many of which are dry. (2) Long, narrow channels containing 
shallows and deeps like the beds of rivers, which they evidently once 
were. (3) Basins which are branched, lobed or otherwise irregular, often 
extremely so, and whose bottom topograph\^ is undulating like the sur- 
face of the land around them. To these might be added basins of 
complex origin which combine some of the characters of the three classes. 

Size 

Morainic lakes are always small, the area of the majority being less 
than one-fourth of a square mile. The largest in Indiana has an area of 
a little over five and one-half square miles, while the Mauersee, in East 
Prussia has an erea of thirty-five square miles, divided, however, into 
six basins, and a maximum depth of 12.5 feet. The depth varies from 
a few feet to a little over 100 feet, which, in some small lakes, makes 
the slope about as steep as the material will lie. 

Kettle-Hole Lakes 

One of the finest specimens of a lake with a single, symmetrical, kettle- 
shaped basin is Gage lake in Mill Grove township, Steuben county. 
(See map.) It is about one mile by three quarters in diameter, and 
surrounded by high sand bluffs. The slope of the bottom is quite 
uniform from every side, and a large area in the center is over fifty feet 
in depth, with a maximum of seventy feet. Clear or Pretty lake, in 
Milford township, Lagrange county, is about the same size as Gage, and 
its basin, nearly circular in outline, forms a perfect w'ashbowl eighty feet 
deep in the center, gradually shallowing to al>out sixty feet towards the 
shore in all directions, then rising rapidly to a wide, shallow rim all 
around. Blue River lake, in Smith township, Whitley county, Ijelongs 
to the same class but is larger and less deep. 

Clear lake in Clear Lake township, Steuben county, is a double, or 
perhaps triple kettle-hole, divided by a ridge which rises to six feet 
below the surface. (See map.) Its area is 1.18 square miles. The south 
basin is regular in outline, a mile and a quarter long by half a mile wide. 
There is a coast shelf of shallow water, from which the bottom falls away 
rapidly, the slope being in several places as much as one foot in two, or 
at an angle of more than twenty degrees. At one place the depth 
increases in ten boat-lengths from six, to ninety feet. A large portion 
of the central area is below sixty feet, and the line of greatest depth 

=-'-Morphologie tier Erdoberfljiche, IL, 26.5. 



THE MORAIXIC LAKES OF INDIANA 55 

varies between seventy ami oni' huinlred feet. The water is very clear, 
and rejxirted by divers to l)e very cold in some places at the bottom. 
Over these areas ice seldom forms, and they probal>ly indicate the position 
of copious sub-lacustrine springs. To this class also belongs some menij 
bers of an interesting group of lakes in .Johnson township, Lagrange 
county. Two of the group, Atwood and Witmer, are situated within a 
terminal moraine of the Saginaw glacier, and are surrounded by high 
hills, but are quite shallow. The others are in a level intermorainic 
interval. Third lake is an irregular hole of perhaps 300 acres in the 
midst of an extensive marsh. A depth of ninety-six feet was found 
within twenty rods of the inlet, and no water beyond was found less than 
seventy-five feet deep. Oliver and Olin lakes, about GOO acres in area, 
lie in the same level interval, but not in a marsh. As far as sounded, 
they proved to have a ijuite uniform depth of from sixty to eighty feet. 
These deep, abrupt and smooth-bottomed basins, not among the hills, but 
sunk into the level surface of the ground moraine, upset the supposed 
rule that lakes with low shores are shallow. 

Examples of kettle-liole lakes might be cited indefinitely. They are 
of all sizes, from a mere pool up to one or two square miles. Dry kettle- 
holes far outnumber the lakes, and are of all dimensions, from a mere 
dimple, saucer or soap-dish to a great cauldron or funnel. The writer 
has seen in Western New York, near the summit of a morainic gravel 
hill, a perfect funnel about two acres in area at the top and tapering 
downwards 100 feet to a sharp point. On account of the porous nature 
of the soil it never retains, even temporarily, a pool of water. If a ket- 
tle-hole sinks into the clayey ground moraine or is lined with an im- 
permeable clay deposit, as a cistern is lined with mortar, it will usually 
be filled with water up to the level of the lowest point in its rim, and if 
the rain-fall exceeds evaporation, will have an outlet. If it sinks into 
sand or gravel below the level of permanent ground water, it is like a 
well, and will hold water up to that level, but will not overflow. The 
celebrated and marvelously beautiful Walden Pond in Concord, Massa- 
chusetts, rendered famous l)y Thorcau and Emerson, is a kettle-hole lake 
in a glacial sand plain, sixty-tive acres in area, 100 feet deep, ami with- 
out visible inlet or outlet. 

Origin. — The precise mode of formation of kettle-holes was for a long 
time a puzzle, until observations of existing glaciers revealed the process. 
During a period of glacial retreat the ice near the margin is stagnant and 
covered with debris to a considerable depth. Large masses of ice become 
detached from the main ma.ss and, buried in drift, are left to melt. As 
they slowly disappear, the drift material caves in over the vacant space 
and only a hole remains, its depth, dimensions and slope depending 
upon the thickness and breadth of the ice block, and the character and 
quantity of the moraine material. Kettle-holes, both dry and water- 



56 STUDIES IN INDIANA GEOGRAPHY 

holding, are among the most characteristic and easily recognized features 
of terminal moraines. 

Channel Lakes 

Terminal moraines contain many long, narrow lakes, which occupy 
valleys generally much too large for them, and have uneven bottoms 
with alternating deeps and shallows like old river-l^eds. During the re- 
cession of a glacier large volumes of water flow away from the ice front 
and carve deep channels for themselves in the loose moraine material. 
After the disappearance of the ice these channels are abandoned, or, 
being supplied only liy rainfall, the volume of the stream is greatly 
diminished. They partially fill up with sediment, and come to be 
occupied b)' marshes or shallow lakes, threaded and connected by an in- 
significant stream. As has been elsewhere noted,* the Saginaw ice lobe 
withdrew from Indiana while the Erie lobe still occupied the northeast- 
ern portion in considerable strength ; and the wiiole northwestern slope 
of the joint interlobate moraine in Bteuben and Noble counties is fur- 
rowed with glacial drainage channels. In Steuben county several 
transverse valleys cut entirely through this moraine and carrj' water 
from the interval on the Erie side into the Lake Michigan basin. They 
are a half mile to a mile in width and 150 feet deep, and each contains a 
chain of lakes strung upon the thread of a small stream. 

The larger lakes of these chains are mostly of comjilex structure and 
origin, but many of them are typical channel lakes. The long, shallow 
arm or neck of Crooked lake in Pleasant township (see map) is a per- 
fect example of this kind. Long and Golden lakes of the Pigeon river 
chain in Steuljen township are each more than a mile long and scarcely 
one-fourth of a mile wide, with a middle depth varying from twenty-five 
to forty feet. From Hogback lake, the next below in this chain, a sim- 
ilar valley trends northward five miles to Gage lake of the Concord 
creek chain. This, too, was once an important drainage line, but a num- 
ber of sand and gravel ridges a few rods wide and thirty feet high, re- 
sembling a railroad embankment or fill, have been in some way thrown 
across the valley, and ponded between them are half a dozen shallow 
pools without outlet. A similar phenomenon is ])resented by tlie valley 
of Long lakes in York township. Noble county. Long lake in Milford 
township, Lagrange county, two miles long and nearly half a mile wide^ 
probably belongs to this class, but is of unusual depth — forty-five to 
eighty feet. Shriner's and Cedar lakes in Thorn Creek township, Whitley 
county, occupy two narrow, parallel valleys, separated by a ridge scarcely 
a quarter of a mile wide. Shriner's is straight and symmetrical, one 
mile by one-fourth, its middle depth increa.«ing from forty feet at the 

"See page 49. 



THK MOUAIXIC LAKES OF INDIANA 57 

foot to over seventy near the head. Cedar is niueli more irregular in 
outline and bottom, and is divided l)y shallows into two basins, of wiiich 
tlie upper is n(>arly eighty feet deep. Round lake, 100 acres in area, and 
1)0 feet deep, eonneeted with Cedar by a narrow channel and at tlie same 
water level, is probably a kettle-hole. 

InRi:r,ii..\i{ Lakes 

Lakes of lobed, irregular and complex form and outline, are numerous. 
They may have been formed simply by the irregular, tumultuous dump- 
ing or heaping up of drift, but many are probably of complex origin, in- 
cluding within one connected area kettle-holes, old river channels and 
basins due neither to the melting of detached ice blocks, nor to stream 
erosion. No better example exists in the world than .James lake, in 
Pleasant and Jamestown townships, Steuben county. (See map.) It 
consists of five distinct basins, with a total length of five miles and an 
area of 2.21 square miles. The southern and largest basin is one mile by 
a mile and a ([uarter, Avith very irregular shores and bottom. Three small 
islands stud its surface, and at another point :i mound in the bottom rises 
to within eight feet of the surface. The depths between vary from thirty 
to sixty-five feet. Upon the east side the shores are abrupt, and the hills 
rise steeply to a height of one hundred to two hundred feet. Bold promon- 
toi-ies, sequestered coves and precipitous bluffs give it a highly picturesque 
character. The second basin is more regular, with a length of one mile 
and a maximum width of half a mile. The east shore continues to be 
high and steep, and only a few rods from it sixty feet of water can be 
found. The maxinium depth is eighty feet. Northward it narrows to a 
strait with only two leet of water, opening into the third basin, which in 
shape, size and depth, closely resembles the second basin. Eagle island, 
a high peak rising abruptly from the water near the north end, is now 
joined to the mainland by a marsh. A few rods ofl' its west shore the 
deepest sounding in the lake was made, eighty-seven feet. A narrow 
passage leads to the fourth basin, which is continuous to the cast with a 
valley, which cuts completely through the moraine and contains numer- 
ous small lakes, surrounded by extensive marshes. Its dt^pth varies from 
thirty to fifty-five feet. This basin is bounded on the north V)y Deer 
island, similar to Eagle, and a bar thickly overgrown witii rushes. The 
lake seems to end here, but if one pushes through the rushes, he emerges 
into the fifth basin, larger than the fourth and about the same dei)th. 
The valley continues northward several miles into Michigan, and con- 
tains Lake George, as large as the southern basin of James, besides many 
small pools. These are drained by Crooked creek, which again emerges 
from James lake on the west side of the second basin, and in less than 
half a mile empties into Jimerson lake. The whole connected series of 



58 STUDIES IN INDIANA GEOGRAPHY 

basins seems to occupy three valleys, which were important lines of glacial 
drainage; one from the southeast through the first and second basins of 
James and Jimerson, one from the north through George, and the fifth, 
fourth and third basins of James, and one from the east into the fourth 
basin. The space between the east and southeast valleys, occupied on 
the map by the label, contains the highest, most precipitous and irregu- 
lar grouji of morainic knol>s in Indiana — rising at one point to 1,200 feet 
above tide. The kvel of James lake is about 1,000 feet. The whole 
region is as nearly Alpine in character as moraine topography can be, and 
though Alpine only in miniature, it presents a surprising variety of 
scenery, which rivals many more famous localities. 

Among the morainic lakes of Indiana, James lake is surpassed in 
size only by Turkey lake in Kosciusco county, which has recently been 
thoroughly surveyed by Messrs. Judaj' and Ridgley, of the Indiana Uni- 
versity Biological Station. A report of their survey appears in the Pro- 
ceedings of the Indiana Academy of Science for 1895, to which we are 
indebted for the map herewith reproduced, and for the following inter- 
esting data. The map tells its own story better than words can. Turkey 
lake is made up of two parts connected by a channel three-quarters of a 
mile long and from one to five feet deep. The part north of the channel, 
known as Syracuse lake, includes an area of three-cjuarters of 'a square 
mile; has an average depth of thirteen and a half feet and a maximum 
of thirty feet. The greatest length of the main lake is about four miles 
and its greatest width one and a half miles. The entire shore line is 
between twenty and twenty-one miles in length, and the area a little 
more than five and a half square miles. The average depth is computed 
to be between seventeen and twenty-two feet; the greate.st depth is 
sixt}--nine feet. An examination of the contour lines of the map shows 
that very much of it, an area computed to be three and a cpiarter square 
miles, is less than ten feet deep. If the level of the lake were lowered 
thirty feet the area would be reduced to one and fifteen-hundredths square 
miles, and it would consist of four bodies of water connected by chan- 
nels from 100 to 200 feet wide and less than ten feet deep. These would 
be: (1) A small area in Crow's Bay with a maximum depth of nineteen 
feet; (2) about one-half of Jarrett's Bay with a maximum depth of thir- 
ty-eight feet; (3) the main body of the lake, its width decreased almost 
one-half, and its maximum depth being thirty-six feet; (4) A small area 
toward the west end with a maximum depth of thirty-three feet. Lower 
the level of the lake forty feet and these four bodies of water would be sepa- 
rate lakes. "The similarity of the lake bottom to the surrounding 
country," remarks Professor Eigenmann, " which seems to have been little 
changed by erosion, makes it quite certain that the lake basin is due to 
the irregular dumping in a terminal moraine, parts of it containing 
deeper kettle-holes." Many interesting data in regard to shores, beaches,. 



THK MOKAINIC LAKES OF INDIANA 5!) 

outflow, evaporation, temperature, ice, etc., may be found in the report 
of Mr. D. C. Ridgloy before cited. 

T.ii'K History 

Of all the varieil features now jnesented upon the face of tlie earth 
there are probably none whose essential characteristics are more obvious, 
whose life histories are more easy to read than those of the inorainic 
lakes. They are all geologically young, those of Indiana being con- 
fined to the very latest moraines of the glacial period. They are mere 
babes born yesterday, and destined to die to-morrow. During the period 
of glacial melting it seems certain that all existing valleys, except drain- 
age lines of rather steep slope, would tend to be filled up. At any rate, 
many such half-filled valleys now exist, and it is probable that all the 
kettle-holes and basins have suffered a considerable diminution in depth. 
As soon as the surface became subject only to the wash of rainfall and 
was covered with forest, general erosion and removal of material from the 
slopes into the hollows was greatly diminished, and at present the results 
of these processes are practically nothing. The streams which now 
emjity into tlie lakes are few and small, and the quantity of sediment 
thus brought in is very trifling. A recognizable delta is almost unknown. 
Many of the lakes are great springs fed by inflows at the bottom, and the 
evaporation so nearly balances the supply that the outlets are small and 
feeble. Natural down-cutting of outlets is nowhere perceptible. The 
deposit of lime and iron salts from the overcharged ground-water is prob- 
ably doing more to fill up the lakes than surface erosion. This ]ihini)m- 
enon is more noticeable in some lakes than in others. Atjuatic plants 
are, as a rule, incrusted with lime, and mussel shells and pebbles upon 
the bottom form nuclei for similar deposits which soon render their origi- 
nal form scarcely recognizable. The water of some shallow lakes seems 
of milky whiteness on account of tlie deposit of marl on the bottom, and 
such lakes look, at a distance, like silver coins or platters laid down among 
the hills. 

Another very efhcient agent tending toward the extinction of these 
lakes is man himself. In the case of small and shallow lakes, artificial 
drainage has often resulted in their complete destruction, wliile the areas 
of large shallow ones have lieen reduced one-half or more. 

A third agency more effective than all others for the obliteration of 
morainic lakes is the growth of aquatic vegetation. The character and 
extent of this growth depends somewhat upon tiie depth of the lake and 
the slope of the shores, but chiefly upon the nature of the bottom. In 
this respect lakes may be divided into three classes — lime lakes, sand 
lakes and peat lakes. In lime lakes the bottom is composed of marl, and 
all vegetation is very scanty and stunted. Tliis is true to nearly the same 



60 STUDIES IN INDIANA GEOGEAPHY 

degree of lakes with sandy bottoms. But a large majoritj' of the lake- 
beds are covered with a black, tenacious mud which furnishes the soil for 
a luxuriant growth of aquatic plants wherever the requisite shallowness 
and stillness of water permit. Small lakes are often surrounded by a bor- 
der of dense vegetation which extends out as far as the line of about 
twelve feet in depth. In the large lakes this occurs only u])on the west 
side, even when the conditions of soil and depth appear equally favorable 
upon the east side. This is due to the prevailing westerly winds, which 
create too much wave disturbance along east shores for the accumulation 
of peat. The lakes are literally being filled with solidified air, the great 
bulk of the solid material which composes the plants being absorbed from 
the gaseous ocean above and consigned to the watery depths below. The 
maps of Steuben count}' show in Fremont township Cedar lake as being 
a mile in diameter. In fact, there is no lake there. Some of the water 
has been drawn off by artificial drainage, and the remainder is now cov- 
ered by a floating, quaking bog with a few open lagoons. This lake has 
been buried alive by a growth of peat, and that there are many such in 
Indiana, the railroad companies which have tried to lay a track across 
them have found to their cost. Extinct lakes are more numerous than 
living ones, and their beds are marked by bogs or meadows underlain by 
fifteen or twenty feet of muck. The process is slow if measured by the 
years of a man's life; perhaps the peat bed extends into the lake only 
a few feet in a century. The present dominant race of men may pass 
away and leave these lakes still lying like bright jewels among the hills; 
but every one is doomed to final extinction. 

"The hills are shadows and they flow 

From form to form, and nothing stands : 

They melt like mist, the solid lands, 
Like clouds they shape themselves and go." 

But of all features of the landscape, lakes are the most ephemeral. 
As long as they remain they will continue to contribute to the service 
and delight of man. They fed the savage with fish, but they feed the 
more highly developed man with beaut}', and afford means for that re- 
laxation and healthful pleasure which the conditions of modern life de- 
mand. The time may come when the lakes of Northern Indiana will be 
the most valuable property of the region, and means will be sought for 
preserving, instead of destroying them. Between the Great Lakes and 
the (Jbio there is no more beautiful tract of country. At present, com- 
paratively few of the citizens of Indiana are aware of its attractions; 
but it cannot long remain in obscurity. Among its hills and lakes thou- 
sands of the coming generation will find their summer homes. ^^^ 

"A more detailed description of these lakes ma.v be found iu the 17th and 18th reports of the 
Indiana State Geologist. 



Vn.— THE NATURAL RESOURCES OF INDIANA 

W. S. liLATclILEY, State Geologist 

Too few of the residents of the state of Indiana have a proper con- 
ception of the natural resources found within her hounds. The text 
books on geography taught in the past, as well as those used at the pres- 
ent day, give but little exact information concerning those resources and 
that in a very condensed form. In the newspapers, which comprise the 
greatest educational factor of the masses, much has been published in 
recent years concerning natural gas. but while this resource has been of 
great value to a certain area of Indiana, it lacks much of being the most 
important natural resource of the state. Others there are, spread over a 
wider area, which have formed in the past, ami will continue to form, 
sources of greater revenue and prosperity to the people at large. Of these, 
as well as of natural gas, some information will be given in this article, 
which, it is hoped, will prove of value to the teachers of the state. 

The natural resources of the state of Indiana, as of any other restricted 
area of the earth's surface, may be classified into two great groups. The 
first of these consists of those forms of matter which have stored within 
themselves potential energy in the form of boat, which may be set free by 
combustion and then be controlled by some device of man and used by 
him to perform work. Such natural resources are called /we^s, the most 
imi)ortant of which, as found in Indiana are coal, natur.\l c.as and 

PETKOLEIM. 

The second group of natural resources consists of those forms of mat- 
ter which are devoid of any kind of stored energy which may be set free 
by combustion, but which are them.selves used bj' man for varied and 
inij)ortant purposes. The most valuable members of this group found 
in the state are soils, bvildixg stones and clays. 

The Natural Fuels of the State 

The fuels of the state, coal, natural gas, and petroleum, are valuable 
only for the stored energy in the form of heat which they contain. In 
speaking of these fuels the great law of the conservation and correlation 
of energy must ever be borne in mind. This law asserts, " That energy,"' 
like matter, "cannot be created, cannot be destroyed, but that one form 



ni l -mnn - 



62 STUDIES IX INDIANA GEOGRAPHY 

can be changed into any other form." Man can invent no new forms of 
energy, nor can he produce a single iota of energy. He can only devise 
machines for transmuting or changing forms already existing into other 
and more available forms. 

But the question naturally arises, how came this heat to be stored in 
the coal and other fuels ? This question brings up another great truth 
which has become fully understood only in recent years ; namely, that 
the sun is the source of all the energy xi-sed in performing the ivork of the world. 
From the sun comes energy in the form of heat and light which fall 
upon the grass and grain and trees of the earth, and furnish the power 
or force necessary for their growth. Heat and light enable plants to 
assimilate food and to grow, and at the same time energy is stored up in 
their tissues. Suppose, for example, that 1,000 calories (heat units) of 
heat are used in producing an ear of corn. When the ear is mature that 
amount of energy, no more, no less,' is stored up in its substance. This 
energy can be made available to perform work for man in two ways : 
First, by burning the corn in a furnace, when the energy will be liberated 
again as heat and can be used to generate steam which in turn will cause 
wheels to revolve ; second, by feeding the ear of corn to a horse, in whose 
body it will be changed into muscular energy which can be exerted in 
turning wheels or in pulling loads. Or, man himself can eat the corn, 
and the energy which is stored up within it will in his body be changed 
into muscular and mental energy. In other words, we move muscles and 
think thoughts with the energy derived from sunlight. 

Plants alone have the power of thus storing up the energy of the sun's 
light and heat. Animals are wholly lacking in this power, and can 
utilize only the energy so stored bv' plants. This fact has been well pro- 
trayed by Professor Edward Orton in the following words: 

" The remarkable office of the vegetable cell is thus brought to light. It 
is a storer of power, a reservoir of force. It mediates between the sun, 
the great fountain of energy, and the animal life of the world. The ani- 
mal can use no power that has not been directly or indirectly stored in 
the vegetable cell. This storage is forever going on. Of the vast floods 
of energy that stream forth from the great center of our system, an insig- 
nificant fraction is caught by the earth as it revolves in its orbit. Of the 
little fraction that the earth arrests, a-n equally insignificant part is used 
directly in plant growth. But the entire productive force of the living 
world turns on this insignificant fraction of an insignificant fraction." 

Bearing in mind this great truth, we can better understand how in ages 
past the sun's light and heat were locked up in the cells of those plant's 
which flourished in the swamps of the carboniferous age. For thousands 
of years it accumulated within their stems and leaves and spores, and 
when, by the processes of nature, the plants w-ere changed into coal it still 
rt'mained, a most valuable heritage for future man. In the same way 



THE XATl'RAL RESOURCES OF IXDIA^s'A 63 

the enerfry stored up in the natural gas and i)etroleuni of the Trenton 
rocks eanie from the sun and has l>een transmitted through the hodies of 
plants and animals. 

The most important thing t<i rumemlter in treating of these natural 
fuels is that they are not being formed in our state to-day. No coal, no 
gas, no oil, is being made in Indiana by nature's processes, either in the botccls of 
the earth or above it. Our present supply of each will never increase, but 
ever diminish. It is a great reservoir or deposit of reserve force upon 
which the people of the present generation are dailj' drawing without 
adding thereto. Like a bank account under the .«ame conditions it is only 
a question of time until it will become exhausted. 

Coal 

Seven thousand square mile.<, or one-fifth of the area of the state of 
Indiana is underlain with coal. This area is found in the western and 
southwestern part of the state, and ranges from ten to sixt)' miles in 
width. It extends from AVarren county southward 150 miles to the Ohio 
river, where it is widest in extent, stretching across the counties of Van- 
derburgh, Warrick, Spencer and part of Perry. "Workable veins arc found 
in nineteen counties in the area mentioned, and thin outcrops occur in 
three additional ones. At least seven distinct veins of workable thick- 
ness occur in the state. These vary from three to eleven feet in thick- 
ness, and aggregate in a few places from twenty-five to twenty-eight feet. 
The area of greatest development of the seams is embraced in the coun- 
ties of Clay, Sullivan, Greene, Daviess and Pike; though Parke, Vermil- 
lion, Vigo, Owen. Warrick and Spencer rank as close seconds. 

The coals of the state are of two varieties, which in places merge into 
one another. Tliese are the non-caking or block coal and the caking or 
bituminous coal. The former is one of the most valuable fuels fr)und in 
the United States. It has a laminated structure and in the direction of 
the bedding lines it splits readilj* into thin sheets, but breaks with difli- 
culty in the opposite direction. It can be mined in blocks as large as it 
is convenient to handle, whence its common name of "block coal." It is 
remarkably free from sulphur or phosphorus, and when burning it does 
not swell out nor does it form a cake by running together. It leaves no 
clinkers, the only residue after combustion being a small quantity of 
white a.shes. Ordinary bituminous coals have to have their volatile con- 
stituents driven off and be changed into coke before they can be utilized 
in the making of iron products. The sulphur which they contain, if 
allowed to remain, would destroy the tenacity and malleability c)f the 
iron. Their tendency to cake or become packed under the weight of the 
overlying ma.ss in the Idast furnace prevents the free passage of the heat 
through all portions of the molten iron. The block coal, on account of 
G-5 



64 STUDIES IN INDLA.NA GEOGRAPHY 

its freedom from suljihur and phosphorus and its non-caking properties, 
can he used without coking and thus hecomes a most vahiable fuel for 
the blast furnace and the cupola of the iron foundry. 

For steam and household purposes it likewise has an unrivaled repu- 
tation. It burns under boilers with a uniform blaze that spreads evenly 
over the exposed surface, thus securing a more uniform expansion'of the 
boiler plates. Its lack of sulphur also causes it to have but little detri- 
mental effects upon the boilers, grates or fire-boxes. In household grates 
it burns with a bright, cheerful blaze like hickory wood, making a very 
hot fire, which for comfort and economy cannot be surpassed by any fuel 
except an abundant supply of natural gas. The block coal area lies 
mainly in Clay, Western Owen and Southeastern Parke counties, though 
small deposits are found in other sections. 

The bituminous or non-caking coals found in Indiana varj^ much in 
purity and character, but their average will compare favorably with that 
of those found in any other state. They are lar more abundant than the 
block coals, occupying an area of almost 6,500 square miles. Four work- 
aVile seams are known, the maximum aggregate thickness of which is 
twenty feet, and the average aggregate thickness over the greater part of 
the district eleven feet. 

The Indiana coal fields are as yet in the infancy of their development, 
yet last year, according to careful statistics gathered by the State Mine 
Inspector, Mr. Robert Fisher, 4,105,210 tons were mined from them. It 
has been computed that a ton of good coal used in a good engine will 
perform the same amount of work as 1,300 horses in a day of ten hours. 
The amount mined in Indiana last year had, therefore, stored up within 
it and capable of utilization, power or energy equal to that exerted by 
1-1,621,300 horses working ten hours a da\' for an entire year. 

The human mind cannot conceive the vast amount of energy at present 
locked up in the coal fields of the state, nor place anj'thing like an ac- 
curate value upon it. The richest men of the nation to-day are those 
who have utilized the stored energv found in coal in years gone bv; who 
have bought this energy at low prices, and either sold it in the form of 
manufactured articles at many-fold its cost j^rice, or used it in transport- 
ing, for hire, man and his products to the four corners of the globe. 

. Natur.\l Gas 

During the past nine years natural gas has done more to advance the 
material interests of the state of Indiana than any other resource within 
her bounds. Millions of dollars of capital have been invested within 
the gas field, and thousands of people have flocked thereto, attracted by 
ready employment at good wages. As a consequence both the wealth and 
jwpulation of the area in which gas has been found have increased mau}-- 
fold. 



THE NATURAL RESOURCES OF INDIANA 65 

Originally that area enihraced jiart of or all of seventeen counties ly- 
ing northeast of the center of the state, and comprised on the whole 
about 5,000 si|uare miles. On account of the encroachment of salt water 
and petroleum, this area has become gradually reduced until to-day the 
main gas field contains an apj)roximate area of "2,500 square miles. This, 
however, is larger than has ever been possessed by any other state in the 
Union. 

The average initial or rock pressure of the entire field in 1889 was 325 
pounds to the square inch. To-day, according to careful measurements 
made during the past season by Mr. J. C. Leach, the State Natural Gas 
Supervisor, it is 2^0 pounds to the square inch over the main field. There 
is no doubt but that one-half of the entire supply has been nearly or 
quite exhausted, and as there can be no increase of it the pressure will 
decrease more rapidly in the future than in the past. How long the sup- 
])ly will last no man can tell. Too many varying factors, as the daily 
amount necessarily consumed for fuel and heat, the different pressures at 
which salt water and petroleum overcome the gas pressure — and more 
than aught else — the future percentage of waste, enter into the considera- 
tion of such a question. If the waste could be entirely shut off, the sup- 
ply in the heart of the field, where much undeveloped territory has been 
held in reserve, would probably last for a number of years. It is in cities 
like Indianapolis and Richmond, which receive their supply through 
pipe lines, that the dimunition in pressure is most noticeable; and there 
is no doubt but that their supply will become completely exhausted some 
time before that of the cities which lie wholly within the field. 

Petroleum 

Within the past two years the production of petroleum has attained 
enormous proportions in Indiana: the output for 1895 Ijeing 4,380,000 
Itarrels. 

The area in which the oil is found has steadily increased, and to-day 
conqirises parts of Adams, Wells, Huntington, Grant, Blackford, Jay, 
Randolph, and Delaware counties. In addition, a few flowing wells are 
in ojwration in the city of Terre Haute, but repeated drilling has failed 
to locate any extensive field in Vigo county. 

The probabilities are that the area of territory productive of oil will 
continue slowly to spread to the west and south until it finally embraces 
the greater part of the area at present yielding natural gas. This has 
been, in general, the history of other gas and oil fields, and there is no 
known reason why the one of Indiana should prove an exception. The 
oil, on account of its much greater specific gravity, underlies the gas in 
the area where the two are found together. As the pressure of the gas 
gradually decreases on account of a dimunition of the .supply, the by- 



6G STUDIES IN INDIANA GEOGRAPHY 

(Irostatic pre8t<ure of the oil in time overcomes that of the gas, and a 
spouting or flowing well of oil results. 

How much oil there is beneath the surface of Indiana is a queston that 
no man can answer. How long it will last depends wholly upon the 
amount, and the average daily or yearly drain therefrom. Suffice it to 
say, that the supply is limited, and will never be increased. The age of a pro- 
ductive oil well in the United States does not generally exceed five years, 
and is often much less. A spouting oil well does not continue to gush 
forth for many weeks if allowed to flow freely. It soon degenerates into 
a flowing well and then into a pumping well, whose production dwindles 
away and .finally ceases to be remunerative, so that unless new wells are 
continually being developed the output must fall ofi" and finally cease 
entirely. However, there is no danger of the supply beginning to fail in 
Indiana for some years to come, as it has as yet been drawn upon for too 
short a time. True, some of the older wells have ceased to yield, but for' 
every one so abandoned a dozen productive ones have been opened up; 
and this will continue to be the case until the total oil area, which can 
only be circumscribed by the future use of the drill, is fully developed. 

Soil 

Indiana is preeminently an agricultural state. Her soils constitute 
by far the most valuable of her natural resources. More people are de- 
pendent upon them for a livelihood than upon all the rest of her re- 
sources and manufocturing establishments combined. Ranking in area 
of square miles but thirty-fourth among the forty-five states of the Union, 
the census of 1890 shows that she stood fourth in the production of 
wheat, seventh in the production of corn, and eiglith in the value of 
her live stock. This magnificent showing is due to two things : first, the 
excellent average fertility of her soils; .second, the high degree of intel- 
ligence manifested by her farming population in the cultivation of 
the soils. 

The soils of Indiana may be roughly classified into three great groups ; 
viz, drift soils, residual soils and alluvial soils. The drift soils are found 
in the northern three-fourths of the state, are extremely varied in depth 
and character and are formed of a mass of heterogeneous material which 
was brought to its present resting place by a great glacier or slowly 
moving sheet of ice which, thousands of years ago, covered the area 
mentioned. t 

The residual soils are found in the counties south of tlio southern 
limit of the glacier. They were formed, for the most part, in the place 
where they are now found, by the decay of the underlying limestone or 



t The Glacial Boundary or southern limit of drift is shown on map p. '28. 



TIIK XATIUAL KKSOIKCKS OF INDIANA 67 

sandstone rocks. Tlie variety of materials entering into their compo- 
sition is tlierefore limited, and they are, for that reason, among the poorer 
soils of the state. 

The alluvial soils are those of the river and creek bottoms throughout 
the state. Gentle rains and earth-born torrents, little trickling rills and 
strong streams are ever at work tearing down the soils and underlying 
clays from everj' slope, and bearing them away to lower levels. The 
small water-formed trench of to-day next year liecomes a chasm and ages 
hence a hollow, and the transported material is gradually dejiosited as 
alluvial soil over the so-called "bottom lands'" which are annually 
overflowed. 

In the production of any cereal nothing new is created, but forms of 
matter already existing in the earth, air and water are utilized by the 
growing i)lant. Taking wlieat, for example, besides the carbon, hydro- 
gen and oxygen, which make up the greater bulk of the straw and grain, 
and which are abundant enough in the air and water, potash, nitrogen, 
phosphoric acid, magnesia, lime, sulphui', chlorine and silicon are abso- 
lutely essential constituents. If any one of these is lacking in the soil, or is 
present in a form not available by the wheat roots, the plants will not 
flourish and the soil will be worthless for wheat production. Such a soil 
may, in most cases be made to produce a crop of grain bv adding to it 
the constituent which is lacking, but if this" can not be done except at a 
prohibitory cost, or one at which more fertile ground can be procured, 
the soil may be regarded as " worn out," barren. 

The drift soils which cover the northern and central portion of Indi- 
ana, derived, as they were, from various primarj' and igneous rocks in 
the far north — ground fine and thoroughly mixed as they were by the 
onward moving force of a mighty glacier — are usually rich in all the 
above named necessary constituents -of plant food. Neither they nor 
the alluvial soils require a large annual outlay for artificial fertilizers as 
do the residual soils of Southern Indiana over which the drift of the gla- 
cial period did not extend. 

Buii.Dixr, Stoxes 

Xo state in the union possesses better stone for building purposes than 
Indiana. The oolitic limestone from Lawrence, Monroe and other 
counties has long been noted among architects for its strength and dura- 
bility. It is of a uniform rich gray color and close texture, and on ac- 
count of the ease with whicli it can be quarried, sawed and dressed for 
builders' use it can be sold with profit for a less sum per cubic font than 
any other stone in America. 

The best grades of it contain 98 per cent, of carbonate of lime, which 
is practically indestructible Ijy ordinary atmospheric inlluenccs. It con- 



68 STUDIES IN INDIANA GEOGRAPIIV 

tains of iron oxide and alumina, two of the most damaging constituents 
of such stone, less than one per cent., thus showing a remarkable degree 
of purity. 

The average crushing strength of twelve samples of tool-dressed oolitic 
stone, as determined by Major General Q. A. Gilmore for the Board of 
State House Commissioners in 187S, was 7,.S.57 pounds per square inch, 
while that of four samples of sawed oolitic stone was 12,675 pounds per 
square inch. 

The best deposits of the oolitic stone are found in a narrow strip of 
territory extending from Greencastle, Putnam county, to Salem, Wash- 
ington county, a distance of 110 miles. The width of this strip varies 
from three to ten miles, and the .stone throughout its full length is found 
very close to the surface. 

Since the building of the court house and the state house at Indianapolis 
from this stone, its use for public and private buildings has steadily in- 
creased, especially in the East and Soutli. A number of the private res- 
idences of the richer citizens of New York City have been recently con- 
structed from it, while its use in such important buildings as the custom 
house at New Orleans, the Auditorium at Chicago, and many court 
houses in the counties of adjoining states has served to bring it more 
prominently before the attention of the public. During the year of 1895 
the quarries in operation in the oolitic district had an output of more 
than 15,000.000 cul)ic feet, the most of which was shipped to points out- 
side of Indiana. 

Besides the oolitic limestones which are largely or almost wholly com- 
posed of calcium carbonate, numerous quarries are worked in the state in 
which magnesium carbonate is a leading constituent of the stone. These 
are found, for the most part, in the eastern half of the state, and belong 
to the Silurian formations. As a rule they are not building stone of a 
high grade. They are darker than the oolitic stone and are more apt to 
crumble after years of exposure, as they contain a larger percentage of 
iron oxide. The magnesia present al.^u cansis thoui to blacken and dis- 
integrate more or less readily, especially in cities where the atmosphere 
contains large amounts of sulphurous fumes dt-rived from thc^ burning of 
soft bituminous coals. ]liM\e\er, much of the majjuesiam limestone 
quarried in Indiana will compare favoraljly. both in texture and dura- 
bility, with many of the stones used for building })Urposcs in other states. 

In a number of localities the .-andstoncs com pricing the so-called 
Conglomerate or Millstone Grit of Wcslern Indiana, arc valuable com- 
mercial stones, ea-ily woiked and of great durability. The Millstone 
Grit is a great formation lying at the Jjase of the Coal Measure rocks of 
the state. In several places, notably at St. Anthony, Dubois count}'; 
Bloomfield, Greene county, and Portland Mills, Parke county, the stone 
is ot a handsome brown color, and compares favorably in appearance with 



THE NATURAL RESOURCES OF INDIANA 69 

the brown sandstones of the Lake Superior refjion which are bo much 
used for the fronts ot business blocks in Ciiicaiii), Milwaukee and other 
cities of the northwest. 

One use to which this brown sandstone is peculiarly well fitted is for the 
lintels and cornices above the windows and doors of those buildings 
whose fronts are composed of dry pressed brick. Where limestone is 
used for the lintels, the rain, dashing against it, is sure to dissolve out a 
small portion of the stone which flow's down over the brick and gives 
them a mouldy, streaked appearance. Where the brown sandstone is 
used no such streaking is seen on the brick beneath the windows and 
archways. The color of the .sandstone also harmonizes better with that 
of the brick than does that of the limestone. 

Large quarries of buff and gray sandstone have also been in successful 
operation at Attica, Williamsport, and Riverside, and at Cannelton. on 
the Ohio river. 

Cl.ws 

Among the most valuable of the undeveloped resources of the state are 
her clay deposits. In one form or another they are found in every 
county, but the largest and most valuable ones occur in the western and 
southwestern parts of the state, where the coal measures exist, for the 
coal measures of the state are preeminently its clay measures. Every 
seam of coal is normally underlain with a bed of fire clay, and above the 
coal there are almost alwaj's beds of .shale. 

These coal shales a few years ago were thought to Ije worthless, but 
experiment has proved that they are excellently adapted to the making 
of paving brick, roofing tile, sewer pipe, and many similiar products. 
In Ohio, where forty-four paving brick factories turned out 298,000,000 
paving brick in 1894, SO per cent, of the best grades were made of the 
carboniferous shales which ten years ago were wholly unused. 

The fire-clays from beneath the coal can be utilized for the same pur- 
poses as the overlying shales, and many of the better grades can be made 
into refractory wares of good iiuality. Some of them are also well suited 
for potter's use. 

In Lawrence, ]Martin and Owen counties there occur large deposits of 
a white kaolin, which is the highest grade clay found in the state. A 
careful clicmical analysis shows that it contains less than two per cent, 
of impurities. The nuantity of iron oxide is so small as to have no 
effect upon the color of the wares made from it, they being, if anything, 
whiter than the clay itself. 

Like many similar kaolins, this is practically non-plastic : but by 
grinding very fine and then kneading, it can be made to assume a cer- 
tain degree of plasticity. Its refractory properties are of the highest, and 



70 STUDIES IN INDIANA GEOGRAPHY 

mixed with a small percentage of a more plastic material, as one of the 
purer underclays of the coal seams, it can be used in the making of the 
finer grades of retorts, glass-pots, glass-tanks, etc. Ground fine and 
pressed dry it will make the highest grade of fire-brick. Much of it has 
been utilized in the past for the making of pottery, and also for alum 
salts used as sizing for the finer grades of writing and wall paper. Thou- 
sands of tons of this purest of clays are visible in the mines which have 
been opened near Huron, Lawrence county, but at the present time it is 
not being worked. The stratum thickens as progress is made further 
back into the hills. The deposit is not a local one covering a few rods or 
acres, but square miles, as evinced by outcrops which are known. There 
is enough in sight in the mines at this one deposit to last an average fac- 
tory a hundred years, and not one-thousandth of it has been exposed to 
view. There it lies, a great mineral resource of untold value, unworked, 
unutilized, awaiting only the coming of energy and capital to make it up 
into many kinds of products which are now brought into our state from 
distant lands. 

The clay-working industries of the state have grown apace in the last 
five years. No hesitation is felt in prophesying that within the next ten 
years they will become the leading manufacturing industries of Western 
Indiana. Raw material and fuel, both of excellent quality, are found 
associated together in enormous quantities in many places which are ac- 
cessible to transportation ; and where the three elements of luel, raw 
material and railways are thus combined, capital in time is sure to locate 
and utilize the natural resources. The larger clay industries already in 
existence in the vicinity of Brazil, Terre Haute and other places, are all 
of them flourishing ; the demand for their products in many instances 
being greater than the i^ossible supply. They have proved by practical 
experience that the shales and under-clays of the coal measures are in 
every way fitted for manufacturing purposes. 

One of the chief beneficial effects which the development of the clay- 
w-orking industries will bring about, will be the increasing of the availa- 
ble amount of coal in the state. Many seams now thought to be too thin 
to work will be utilized in connection with the associated shales and fire- 
clays. The minimum thickness of a workable seam of coal will, there- 
fore, be greatly reduced, and many veins which have long been allowed 
to pass unnoticed will be mined with profit. 

Iron Ores 

Limonite or bog iron ore. and siderite or kidney iron ore, are found 
abundantly in several counties of Indiana. The former occurs, notably, 
in Greene, Martin and Perry counties, and in the swamps of the Kanka- 
kee region — the siderite in all of the coal-bearing counties. Experience 



THE NATURAL liESOURCES OF INDIANA 71 

has proved, however, that these ores are too silicious to compete with the 
rich beds of hematite of Missouri, Tennessee and Georgia. As a proof 
of this, it is only necessary to state that of fourteen blast furnaces which 
have been erected in the state in the past, not one is in operation at the 
present. Most of them have long since gone to ruin, and of those still 
standing the last one went out of blast in 1893. 

Other Minerals and Ores 

With the exception of small quantities of drift gold in the form of 
minute grains and scales, which are found in the sands and gravel beds 
along the streams of Brown, Morgan and other counties near the south- 
ern limit of the drift area, no gold, silver or other precious metals occur 
in the state. Much money has been foolishly spent, and time wasted by 
people w^ho have thought otherwise; but they have ever had their labor 
for their pains. 

In many of the northern counties small pieces of "black-jack" or zinc 
blende, galena or lead sulphide, and native copper, are occasionally found, 
and give rise to much local excitement and speculation. It is needless 
to say that the specimens of lead and copper were brought in by the ice- 
sheet or by the Indians; and the blende, while possibly of native origin, 
is utterly valueless. In almost every county one also hears tales of re- 
puted silver and lead mines, which in the days of long ago were secretly 
worked by the Indians. Many well-informed people yet believe these 
tales, and have spent days in fruitlessly searching after imaginary mines, 
where enough silver may be had to pave the streets of their native towns, 
or where lead ore exists without limit. 

^^■hiIe Indiana is thus lacking in the precious and other useful metals, 
her deposits of coal, clay, stone, natural gas and petroleum are far more 
valuable, and will in time bring more wealth into the state than if, in- 
stead of them, rich mines of gold and silver had lieen found within her 
bounds. Higher grades of labor and more stable industries are based 
upon such resources, for few, if any, large factories utilize gold and silver 
in quantity as a manufacturing resource. 



VIIL— INDIANA : A CENTURY OF CHANGES IN THE 
ASPECTS OF NATURE * 

AMOS W. BUTLER 

It is probable that the first white man within tlie boundaries of Indi- 
ana was the explorer, LaSalle. His voyage was made about 1669. The 
earliest settlements were established within the first quarter of the last 
century at Ouiatenon and Vincennes. Authorities do not agree as to 
which was settled first or the date of the settle*Tient. These were but 
trading posts. Their efiect upon existing conditions was liut small. Nor 
was it until the English began to occupy this region, at the opening of 
this century, that the old began to fade before the now. 

FOBESTS 

Over the greater part of this state were spread dense forests of tall trees 
— heavy timber — whose limbs met, and branches were so interwoven 
that lint occasionally could the sunlight find entrance. There was little 
or no undergrowth in the heaviest woods and the gloom of these dense 
shades and its accompaning silence was terribly oppressive. Mile upon 
mile, days' journey upon days' journey, stretched those gloomy shades 
amid giant columns and green arches reared by nature through centuries 
of time. The only interruj^tion were the beds of water-courses; the 
poorer hill-sides covered with underbrush; the smaller growth of less pro- 
ductive uplands; the site of an extensive windfall, the record of a tor- 
nado's passage; the small area of second-growth timber marking the for- 
mer clearing for some Indian camp; the more or less extensive patches 
of meadow, the result of the destruction of the forest by Indian fires. 
To the west in the valley of the Wabash, were wide meadows covered 
with long grass. In the northern third of our territory' were prairies and 
sloughs alternating with wooded sand-hills and reedy swamps, imper- 
fectly drained l)y a network of sluggish streams, which, in turn, gave 
place to extensive uiarshes toward Lake Michigan. 

The southern portion of the state was more heavily timbered. Per- 
haps nowhere could America show more magnificent forests of deciduous 
trees, or more noble specimens of characteristic forms than existed in the 

^Address of the Presidt-nt of tho Indiana Academy of Science, at Indianapolis, Dec. 27. 18;t5. 



A CEXTl'RY OK CHANciES IN TIIK ASPECTS OF NATURE 73 

▼alleys of tliv W'aliash and Whitewater. The trees decreased in size to 
the northward, those aionir the lakes being noticeably inferior. Conifer- 
ous trees were few in numl)er and confined to restricted areas. Those 
found were poor representatives of their species. The forests were made 
up of many kinds of trees growing together iiidiscriininately. Ileii' and 
there a certain group or occasionally a species was found predominating. 
In various localities the character of the forest was diHerent. While 
oak, ash, hickory, niaiiie, heech ami elm were prevailing trees, they varied 
much in number and proportion. In some places the tulip ])oi)lars were 
very numen)us, the trees often attaining great size — the largest tree of 
the primitive forest. Forty-two kinds of trees in the Wabash valley 
attained a height above a hundred feet; the tallest recorded being a 
tulip poplar IIK) feet high. It was twenty-five feet in circumference and 
ninety-one feet to the first limli. Many thousands grew over the state 
measuring from three and a-half to ten feet in diameter. Numbers of 
sweet gum in the more fertile ground in the southern part of the state 
contended with the tulip poi)lar in height, and in beauty and .'iymmetry 
exceeded it. They sometimes attained a height of loO feet and a diam- 
eter of four feet, often preserving almost the same size to the first limb. 

In the oak woods there were giants, too. The red, scarlet, burr and 
white oaks reaching a girth of ten to twenty feet, and often a height of 
125 to 150 feet. One instance is reported of a scarlet oak 181 feet high. 
In the southern part of the state, too. the sweet burkeye attains great 
size, often being three and a-half to four feet in diameter, with a trunk as 
straight as a column, and reaching a total height of over 100 feet. One 
example of this species is uniijue. It is the tree from which was 
made the celebrated buckeye canoe of the Harrison presidential cam- 
paign of 1840. The tree grew in the southeast corner of Hush county. 
and is said to have been, when standing, twenty-seven feet nine inches 
in circumference and ninety feet from the ground to the first limb. Here 
and there, (juite thickly scattered, were to be found groves of the finest 
black walnut trees the world has ever known. Some of these groves 
were quite extensive, containing hundreds of trees, individuals of which 
were four to six feet in diameter and 100 to 150 feet high. 

In the river valleys, along the streams, the great size of tlie sycamore 
was noticeable. This was the largest of the hardwood trees, reaching a 
maximum height of 140 to Ibo feet and often measuring five to ten feet 
in diameter. Keeping these company were the cottonwoods, the larger 
of which measured five to eight feet in diameter and l:!Oto lUo feet high. 
The beauty of all the trees of this region was the white elm. Its diame- 
ter was three to five feet and its height sometimes 120 feet or more, the 
ambitus often spreading over 100 feet. 



74 STUDIES IN INDIANA GEOGRAPHY 

Indian Villages 

At the time of its settlement the southeastern third of our territory,, 
including- all the Whitewater valley, contained no towns, and was un- 
occupied by the Indians save as occasionally a hunting or a war party 
passed through it. In the valley of the Wabash and in the northeastern 
part of the state were Indian villages, located because of natural advan- 
tages. These have been apparent to the whites, who in several instances 
established upon their sites, settlements, some of which have since become 
prominent as towns or cities. Kckionga (Fort Wayne), Chip-kaw-kay 
(Vincennesj, and Ouiatenon, on the west side of the Wabash river, four 
miles below Lafayette, were selected as trading posts by the whites, being 
centers of the finest game region occupied by man within the limits of 
the pi'esent state. The peltry from tlie last mentioned post in one year, 
in those early times, amounted to about 8,000 pounds sterling. 

Animals 

In different localities under different conditions were different forms 
of life. We have noted this concerning plants. It was so regarding 
animals. American bisons, buffaloes they are generally called, ranged in 
countless numl^ers over the meadows and prairies at the time we first 
learn of them. The Whitewater and Miami valleys formed routes to 
the Ohio river and the Big Bone Lick in Kentucky. The Wabash valley 
became another avenue for their journej-s, and the old trail from the 
prairies of Illinois to the Kentucky barrens, crossed the Wabash river 
below Vincennes. Over this wide, well-marked road, evidences of which 
still remain, countless thousands of bisons passed annually. From the 
Ohio river to Big Bone Lick was a road spacious enough for two wagons 
to go abreast, made by these animals. Evidence of their former abund- 
ance is preserved in the swamps about this lick. In places their bones 
are massed to the depth of two feet or more as close as the stones of a 
pavement, and so beaten down by succeeding herds as to make it diflicult 
to lift them from their beds. The Blue Licks in Kentucky was also a favo- 
rite spot. In 1784 Filson says: "The amazing herds of buffliioes which 
resort thither, by their size and number, fill the traveller with amazement 
and terror, especially when he beholds the prodigious roads they have 
made from all quarters, as if leading to some i^oiaulous city; the vast 
space of land around these springs desolated as if l)y a ravaging enemy, 
and hills reduced to plains; for the land near these springs is chiefly 
hilly." In the region that was densely wooded the bisons were only 
seen as transients, but in the meadows and prairies they abounded. 
From the summit of the hills at Ouiatenon we are told that in 1718, 
nothing was visible to the eye but prairies full of buffaloes. 

Elks were common and deer still more so. Bears and wolves were 



A CENTURY OF CHANGES IN THE ASPECTS OF NATURE 75 

quite abundant. In (inc favorite locality, it is reported, a good hunter, 
without much fatigue to liiniself, could supply daily one hundred men 
with meat. Beavers were found in many localities. Especially favor- 
able to them were the more level regions to the northward. Otters 
were quite common, wliilc wild cats, Canada porcupines and panthers 
were numerous. 

Of snakes especially noticcal)le for their aliundance were rattlesnakes 
and copperlieads. 

The ponds, sloughs and deeper swamps were the homes of many spe- 
cies of fishes, mollusks and crustaceans. The creeks, shaded by the 
clofiicly-crowding trees, contained water all the year round, and in them 
smaller fishes reared their young. Tlie rivers were clogged and dammed 
with follen trees and driftwood, and the water, when the streams were 
-swollen by heavy rains, pouring over tliese obstructions, cut deep holes 
which became the homes of great numbers of larger fishes. 

WM turkeys were found in large flocks. Bob-wliites were so numer- 
ous that when they collected in the fall as many as a hundred were 
taken in a day with a single net. Rufied grouse were abundant. Ducks 
and geese, snipe and plover were found in inestimnl)le numbers where 
favorable conditions existed. Paroquets were more or less numerous 
over the entire region, and in the lower ^\'abash and Whitewater valleys 
were as abundant as blackbirds are in spring and tall. Passenger pigeons 
bred and roasted in many localities. During the migrations thev ap- 
peared in such numbers that they ob.scured the sun and hid the sky 
for hours, sometimes for days in succession. The strange appearance was 
made more wonderful by the continuous rumble of the thunders of the 
oncoming cloutls — the noi.se of the strokes of millions ujjon millions of 
wings. 

Besides these, more rarely swallow-tailed kites and ivory-billed wood- 
peckers added their characteristic forms to the wild scenery along the 
Ohio river. The osprey and bald eagle built their nest beside the streams, 
and while one fished the other plundered the fisher. 

Within the dense shades of the deeper woodland there was but a small 
number of birds. There, quiet reigned; twilight by day and densest 
darkness by night. How oppressive the awful ijuiet amid those gloomy 
solitudes! Everywhere the smaller birds were few compared with their 
present numbers. 

Results (M' Wuitk OcrurAxroN 

But men of our race came upon the scene. Imlians there had been 
before. As it always has been and so will continue to be when tM'o 
races, one superior, the otlier inferior, come into competition the superior 
will overcome. The contest was unequal. Tiie barbarism of the Ohio 



76 STUDIES IN INDIANA GEOGRArHY 

valley could not hold its own against the alert and thoroughly equipped 
pioneer. Soon the native began to part with his land. It was not long 
until many sought other homes. Others attempted to become permanent 
residents and to adopt, in some measure, the habits of the conquerors. 
The result is too well known. An ancestor of theirs, gifted with the 
power of a seer, may have been the subject of these lines : — 

" There was once a neolithic man, an enterprising wight, 
AVho kept his simple instruments unusually bright ; 
Unusually clean he was, unusually brave. 
And he sketched delightful mammoths on the borders of his cave. 

To his neolithic neighbors, who were startled and surprised, 
Said he, ' My friends, in course of time we shall be civilized I 
We are going to live in cities and build churches and make laws ; 
We are going to eat three times a day without the natural cause ; 
We are going to turn life upside down about a thing called gold ; 
We're going to want the earth and take as much as we can hold. 
We're going to wear a pile of stuff outside our proper skins ; 
We're going to have diseases ! and accomplishments ! and sins ! ! ! ' " 

In the office of the Secretary of State, at Washington, is an impression 
of " The seal of the Territory of the U. S., N. W. of the Ohio River." Of 
this the late William H. English in his "Conquest of the Country North- 
west of the Ohio River," says: "A study of this historic seal will show 
that it is far from being destitute of appropriate and expressive mean- 
ing. The coiled snake in the foreground and the boats in the middle 
distance; the rising sun; the forest tree felled by the axe and cut into 
logs, succeeded by, apparently, an apple tree laden with fruit; the Latin 
inscription ' meliorem lapsa locavit,' all combine to forcibly express the 
idea that a wild and savage condition is to be superseded by a higher 
and better civilization. The wilderness and its dangerous denizens of 
reptiles, Indians and wild beasts, are to disappear before the axe and rifle 
of the ever-advancing western pioneer, with his fruits, his harvests, his 
boats, his commerce, and his restless and aggressive civilization. 

Meliorem lapsa locavit/ 

He has planted a better than the fallen ! 

The white man made the navigable waterways his routes and settled 
along them. At once, under his influence, the aspects of nature began 
to change. As in every other land the effects of man's settlement began 
to be seen. The need for food and clothing and the desire for tillable 
land were the great causes which impelled him to action. In every 
land, on every sea, the stor}' has been the same. Before his aggression 
disappeared the most noticeable forms of life. The large or conspicuous 
species are those most easily affected, the ones which first are destroyed. 
The disappearance of the great animals of Europe, of the bison and the 
urus; the extinction of the giant birds of New Zealand, of Steller's sea 



A CENTURY OF CHANCiKS IX THE ASPKCTS OF NATURE 77 

cow Mild the givat auk, one cacli u\<nu ovir eastiTn anil wcslt'rn coast; 
the nioist wonderful destruetion of the great herds of Anieriean bison, the 
threatened extinction of the fur seal in the North Pacific: of the zebra, 
camelopard and other large animals in Africa, are but notable illustra- 
tions of the greater changes that have been wrought. There are smaller 
ones m)t so conspicuous but more potent in their inHuenees upon 
human welfare. 

The bison, the most characteristic of all the animals of America, was the 
first to disappear from the region under consideration. Ft)rmerly it had 
ranged east, at least as far as Western New York and Pennsylvania and 
in Virginia almost to tide water, but in 1808 it was exterminated east of 
the Wabash. The elk followed it closely, disappearing from the White- 
water valley about 1810, and from the state in 1830. The panther fol- 
lowed soon after. Virginia deer, bear, wolf, otter, beaver and other 
forms were almost exterminated, though of some, if not all of these latter 
forms, a remnant yet remains in some favored localities. 

Turkeys and bob-whites; ivory-billed woodpeckers and wood ibises; 
black vultures and Carolina paroquets have been almost, or in a great 
measure, exterminated. The paroquet which ranged to the Great Lakes 
and were so common a feature in the landscapes of pioneer times have 
not only disappeared from Indiana, but from almost all the great range 
from Texas to New York, over which they spread at the beginning of 
this centurv, and are, perhaps, now only found in a restricted area in 
Florida. The day of their extirjiation is near at hand. 

The passenger pigeon survived the beautiful little parrot until a later 
dav. But nets and guns, a short-sighted people and inefficient laws have 
all but swept out of existence this graceful bird. It is now on the verge 
of extinction. We can no more appreciate the accounts given of the in- 
numerable hosts of these birds of passage than we can of the incalculable 
multitudes of the bisons three-score years ago. The words of those who 
saw them, we are assured, do not in any way convey an adequate idea of 
the wonderful sights and sounds during a flight of pigeons. Some of 
their roosts covered many miles of forest. There, as they settled at even- 
ing, the gunners from near and far began to collect for the slaughter. 
The loaded trees upon the borders of the wood were first fired upon. 
Tlien they pa.ssed into the denser forest. Three or four guns fired among 
the branches of a tree would bring down as many as two bushel sacks of 
deail birds, while numbers of cripples fluttered beyond reach. After a 
number of shots over a considerable area, several acres perhaps, the whole 
roost would rise with a deafening thunder which no one has attempted 
to describe, and soar out of sight in the dusk of the early evening while 
from the rising cloud came a noise as of a mighty tornado. As the dark- 
ness settled the birds descended and alighted, many deep, upon the 
branches of the trees, the weight being sufficient to break off many of the 



78 STUDIES IN INDLINA GEOGRAPHY 

large limbs. Then the scene changed. The slaughter began in earnest. 
The rapid firing of guns; the squawking of the pigeons; the breaking of 
the limbs of giant trees beneath their living weight; the continuous rum- 
ble arising from the whirr of countless wing.s ; all illumined b}' the lurid 
lights from numerous torches and many fires, produced an efiect of which 
no words can convey a conception to one who has not experienced a 
night at a pigeon roost. Each year such scenes were re-enacted. Each 
year the .slaughter went on. Less and less the numbers grew. Trapping 
and netting, supplemented b}^ reiaeating guns, added to the power of 
destruction, and the pigeons whose numbers were once so great that no 
one could conceive the thought of their extinction, have dwindled until 
they are rarely found. One pigeon in a year! Soon the\' will be but a 
memory. 

Removal of Forests 

The pioneer's first work was to cut away the trees and build a cabin. 
As each cabin was built it foreshadowed a clearing extending more and 
more each year. The line of the Ohio and the Wabash formed the basis 
for the advance of settlement. The axe and the fire performed their 
work. Great deadenings gave promise of a lively time log-rolling next 
season. Giant tulip poj^lars, monster black walnuts, and oaks, ash, wild 
cherry and sweet gum, the largest of their fellows, were rolled into heaps 
and burned. To this, in time, was added the demand for fuel, for lum- 
ber and for timber to supjily all the drafts which human wants could 
make upon' the forest, not only for our own population but for other 
states and other lands. Thus were our forests destroyed. Now, except 
in a few localities, there remains no virgin forest. 

The destruction of the primitive woods costs much besides the 
trees that were sacrificed. Each tree was the nest or resting place of other 
forms of life — of the blight upon its leaves; of the fungus upon its limbs; 
of the lichen and moss upon its bark; of the birds among its branches; 
the insects on its foliage and about its blossoms; the borers within its 
body. And it sheltered other lowly ground-inhabiting forms beneath its 
spreading shades. Who can tell what the destruction of a tree signifies? 
How far-reaching are its effects? After the axe came fire, carrying de- 
struction to the mure inconspicuous animals and plants. Fire, too, swept 
the standing woods and its blighting effects extended far beyond the im- 
mediate necessities of the pioneer. With the cutting away of the larger 
trees in many localities sprang up thickets, and therewith came thicket- 
inhabiting animals. As the clearings were extended meadow lands 
and pasture lands were reserved. To the meadows came such forms as 
tlie bay-winged bunting, field sparrow, grasshopper sparrow, meadow 
lark, meadow mice, garter snakes, green snakes, bumble-bees and grass- 



A CKNTrKV OF CIIANCKS IN TlIK ASPFXTS OF NATCKK 7!i 

hoppers — species peeuliar to such surroundings. Sonic parts of tliis land 
were wet, and wliere tlie drainage was poorest became swamps and sloughs. 
Tliere, forms which love such places came. Among them marsh wrens, 
swamp sparrows and red-winged bla('kl)irds, salamanders, frogs, water 
snakes, aquatic insects and marsh plants. The orchard and garden de- 
veloped, birds well known to us and greatly beloved for their cheery 
social ways, there made their home and lived upon food brought to the 
locality by the changing conditions. The number of settlers increased, 
causing steady diminution in numbers of all the larger mammals, 
especially those u,«ed for food or valuable for fur; of geese, ducks and 
other water-loving birds. The early settlers had brought with them the 
black rat. Later another form, the brown rat, which like the first was 
native of tlie old world, appeared, following the routes of civilization. 
It drove out the other rat and has since occupied its place. The shy gray 
fox disappeared in advance of the oncoming pioneer, and the red fox oc- 
cupied the field left vacant. The hog, a most valuable factor in the 
development of the West, proved equally valuable as an ally in the war- 
fare against snakes. Largely through its efforts were the rattlesnakes 
and copperheads destroyed. 

Removing the timber and breaking the ground began to show its effect 
upon springs and water-courses. Many became dry during the warm 
season. All life, be it salamanders, fishes, mollusks, insects or plants 
that found therein a home, died. As time went on drainage became a 
feature introduced into the new country. With the draining of the 
sloughs and swamps other changes came. The birds that lived among 
their reeds and tiags, mingling their voices with those of the frogs, dis- 
appeared, and the land reclaimed tells, in its luxuriant growth of corn, 
no story to the casual passerby of the former papulation which occupied it. 

And so it was. Change succeeded change; little by little, but still each 
cleared field, each drained swamp, each rotation of crops, each one of a 
thousand variations in cause had its effect upon the numbers and life- 
histories of our plants and animals. 

When the Indians left, the pi-airies were no longer annually burned 
over. Forest vegetation began to seize upon this open land and, in time, 
much of it became reforested. Into it was brought life from the sur- 
rounding woods and the former occupants were driven out. 

With the thinning of the trees in the woodland appeared an under- 
growth. Where the undergrowth came, and w^here the second-growth 
appeared in neglected clearings, the vegetation was often different from 
that of the original forest. This, too, was destined to go the way of 
passing things. The ginseng, spikenard, bloodroot, yellowroot, mayajjple 
and many ferns arc following the woody plants to extermination. Milk 
sickne&s, once so prevalent among the early settlers, with the i)eculiar 
fevere of the new country, are of the jiast. Staggers has disappeared 
G-6 



80 STUDIES IN INDIANA GEOGEAPHY 

from many places, yet the wild larkspur, which traditionally is its cause, 
has become more abundant in some congenial localities, and in such 
neighborhoods the disease is quite serious. 

But there are other results of the introduction of civilization which 
have made themselves felt. The streams were dammed and the migra- 
tory tishes prevented from ascending them. The driftwood disappeared 
from the water courses. In time the dams, too, were gone. The deep 
holes, where the fishes loved to hide, filled up. The streams carried less 
water through the summer. Dynamiting, netting, and other illegal 
means of fishing became prevalent. All these have combined to wage a 
war of extermination against the inhabitants of our streams and lakes 
which might, if properly protected, prove an exceedingly valuable factor 
alike in the enjoyment and in the food supply of our people. 

The telegraph wire is very destructive to birds. Birds and insects 
have found a new instrument of destruction in the electric light. Many 
living things besides man have found that railroad tracks are dangerous. 
They, in turn, are highways along which the cars introduce new forms of 
plant and animal life. The self-binder and the mower play havoc with 
the lives of many inhabitants of the medows and grain fields. 

Following in the civilizer's footsteps have come other changes. Man 
has not only made the wilderness to blossom as the rose, and gathered 
fruits and grain from all lands for the necessity and enjoyment of our 
people, but with the grain has been sown tares, and with the fruit has 
been planted blight. Teasels, Canada thistles, wire grass, plantains and 
prickly lettuce are contending for the soil. Pear blight, black knot, 
smuts and rusts affect fruits and flowers. Chinch bugs, Hessian flies, 
Colorado potato beetles, clover-root borers, scale insects and cabbage 
worms dispute with the farmer his right to the crops he has planted. 

Some of the native forms of life have changed their habits in some 
respects. This is evidenced by the rose-breasted groslieak feeding upon 
the Colorado potato beetle, the destruction in the rice fields of South 
Carolina caused by the rice birds — our bol)olinks, the loss inflicted in 
the rice swam^js of Louisiana by the red-winged blackbirds, the damage 
done to the western corn grower liy the bronzed grackle — our common 
blackbird. 

By man's agency the Eurojjean house sparrow, or English sjjarrow, 
was introduced and as its numljcrs increased it began to assert itself in 
the struggle for existence. The bluebird, which had come from her 
hole in the snag, was driven from her box. The martin, which, like the 
chimney swift, formerly nested in hollow trees, left its nesting sites about 
the house. Even the eave swallow, which in olden times fastened its 
nests to the cliffs, was, in some cases, driven away. The warfare with 
this aggressive little foreigner still continues, worse in some places than 
others. But it has such surprising powers of reproduction and unheard 



A CENTURY OF CHANGES IN THK ASPECTS OF NATURE 81 

(if audarity it tieenis that it must soon cover our entire continent. The 
history of the German carp in tliis country illustrates the same persistent 
and successful struggle for the mastery in our waterways that has been 
noted of the house sparrow on the land. 

In time, fashion demanded that which neither man's appetite nor his 
need for protection had impelled him to take. Her altars were erected 
and upon them sacrifices — a host innumerable — were offered. Fur-bear- 
ing animals and bright-plumaged birds were most earnestly desired, but 
even the shells of turtles, the skins of snakes, the teeth of alligators and 
the pearls of fresh-water mussels were acceptable offerings. The extent 
of the destruction of innocent bird-lives alone is appalling. A few facts 
may convey some idea of this. Among the items of one auction sale in 
London were 0,000 birds of paradise; 5,000 Impeyan pheasants; 360,000 
assorted skins from India; 400,000 humming birds. One dealer in 1887 
sold no less than 2,000,000 bird skins. From information obtainable it 
is certain that hundreds of thousands of birds must have been slain in 
the United States for the glory of fashion's devotees. It is probable that 
not less than 5,000,000 birds were ref[uired each year to supply the de- 
mand in this country alone when the bird-wearing craze was at its height. 
To this great number of victims our own state has been to a greater or 
less extent, a contributor. Many counties in Indiana were visited by 
l)ird hunters. It is said from Indianapolis alone 5,000 birds prepared for 
millinery purposes were shipped in one year. Under our present law, 
which seems to be well enforced, it is a pleasure to say, our birds are ap- 
parently free from that danger. 

Changes still continue. The future will record them as has the past. 
Those to come in-omise to be more fruitful of results; to be of greater mo- 
ment to mankind; to bring more earnest messages for human weal or 
woe. But during no time in the future w'ill the changes in the a.spects 
of nature here l)e so notable, so incomprehensible because of their vast- 
ness, as have those of the century just closing. 



IX.— A STUDY OF THE CITY OF TEKRE HAUTE 

CHARLES R. DRYER 

While cities are the most artificial features of the earth, yet they are 
most intimately dependent upon natural conditions. They are the 
hieroglyphics which record in summary and epitome the whole geogra- 
phy of a country, physical, political and commercial. The student 
should be taught to read that inscription. The main lines of investiga- 
tion are two: 

1. What conditions originally determined the location of the city? 

2. What causes have conspired to make it a large city ? 

These problems should be stated in terms intelligible to the students 
and they should be set to work to find solutions for themselves. Don't 
tell them anything. Some boy may make the brilliant discovery that 
rivers have a strong inclination to flow through large towns; and that 
discovery is worth more tn hivi than all the information about it that 
could be crammed into him. The young cities of America afford much 
easier work than the cities of the old world. The investigation may be 
conducted in regard to one particular city, as Chicago, or to the cities of 
a certain area, as New. York, England, the Mediterranean shore. 

Nearly all important cities will be found to have an intimate relation 
with water routes. The sea and the river are the natural highways of the 
world. The cities which are situated on bays or inlets which afiord good 
harbors and easy communication inland, on deltas, at the head of tide 
water, at the head of navigation, at rapids, falls, or divides which neces- 
sitate a "carry" or portage of goods, or at an easy stream-crossing, ford, 
ferry or bridge, include a very large per cent, of all ; and the student 
should be led to discriminate between these various conditions. If to 
these be added the cross-roads cities, which stand at the intersection of 
great routes of land travel, there will remain but a few special cases to 
be accounted for otherwise. Let cities be classified according to these 
characters ; but let the d\idcut do hk own classification, which means 
only that he should be permitted, encouraged, comf)elled to do his own 
thinking. 

In city schools the same plan of inductive study may be applied to 
the home city with great profit. Let the students investigate the origin 
and growth of their own town, how a certain street or quarter came to 



A STIDY OF Till'. CITY OF TFHKK HAl'TK 83 

bo devoted to business, another to inanufactuic, and another to residence. 
Let them learn how their own city is managed and governed, about 
l)aving, street cleaning, sewerage, gi\s and water sui)ply. This is geogra- 
phy of the most intensive educational, scientific and practical value. 

Ol'TLIXE FOR A STrPV OF THE CITY OF TERRE HAUTE* 

I. CONDITtONS Willi 11 HKTEH.MINKI) TlIK LOCATION OF THE TOWN 

1. Prdimiinmj Efoil.^. 

Occupation by Mound Builders occupation by Indian Tribes 



French discovery and occupation posts at Vincennes and ( )uiatenon 

(I>afayette) ce.<sion to the English Clark's Concjuest -cession to 

the United States ^ordinance of 17S7 organization of the Territory 

of Indiana seat of government and land ofliee at Vincennes Indian 

wars and extinguishment of Indian title to land Fort Harrison 

government survey decline in importance of Vincennes. 

^. Physical Coaditbms. 

Wabash river navigability good landing place straight 

rea<-h of river — — unbroken riverfront flood plain on east side nar- 
row Macksville terrace narrowed bottoms and made easy crossing 

broad valley aliove and below extensive i)rairies and bottom lands 

gravel terrace wooded ridge parallel with and near ri\-er good 

drainage. 

S. Foiindiiifj nf the Tmvn. 

French settlement at "Old Terre Haute" three miles below and English 

settlement at Fort Harrison were rivals a town mid-way between 

would kill both site of old Indian village ^junction of Louisville, 

Vincennes and LaFayette roads land owned by the founders who 

were the founders? motives in founding origin of name 

original plat early settlers sources of subseipient immigration. 

II. INFLUENCES AND CONDITIONS WHICH LED TO THE GROWTH 
OK THE TOWN 

Navigation on W'.iliasli River organization of Vigo County an<l 

location of county seat the National road the Wabash and ICrie 

canal canal to Evansville corn and wheat lands milling 

pork packing distilling blue grass pastures horse raising and 

<'This outline was prcjiared at the rtuincst of erincipal t'Imrles S. Meek, of the Torre Haute 
lIiKh School, for the use of his senior class. For as,sisl4iuee in its preparation, aeknowledgnient 
of indebtedness is made to an artiele on the Kvolution of Cities, by tin; eminent Freneli geog- 
rapher, Elisee Keelus, in the C(jntenn»orary Review for Fehrnary, ISii'i. an abstract of wliieh 
appeari-d in The Inland Kiji-catok, Vol. 1. p. '■iUi; lo the paper of Superintindent W. H. I'owell, of 
Wiushington, I). C, read at the International (ieotjraphic Conference at ChieaKO. and published in 
the National Ueographie MaKazine, Vol. V, p. J37; to a plan for a .study of the Rural Community, 
by Superinti'ndent W. A. MiUis, of Attica, Ind., The Ini.an-d Eiiucator, Vol I, p. 2!I8: and to Dr. 
J. T. Scovell of Terre Haute, for free u.se of his intimate knowledge of the locality. 



84 STUDIES IN INDIANA GEOGRAPHY 

racing native timber, walnut etc. the railroads, T. H. & I., C. C. 

C. & St. L., E. & T. H., etc. coal mining l)last furnace and rolling 

mill brick and tile manufacture, etc. 

TII. THE MAKERS OF TERRE HAUTE 

Bullitt, IVIarkle, Lasalle, Aspinwall, Early, Griswold, Reed, Dewees, 
Gilbert, Cruft, Linton, Farrington, Ross, Warren, Modesitt, Rose, 
^IcKeon, Deming, Kidder, Hulman, Collett, Crawford, etc. 

The study of contemporaries may lie omitted or continued at 
discretion. 

IV. STAGES OF DEVELOPMENT 

Growth in space -causes of extension in various directions 



growth in population growth in value of projierty changes in 

character of buildings cliangcs in character of population changes 

in social conditions changes in sanitary condition disappearance 

of malaria growth in schools and churches changes in municipal 

government incorporation of town or city. 

V. THE PRESENT CITY 

1. Advantages and Disadvantages of Location. 

Latitude and longitude climate mean temperature for January 

and July absohite range of temj)erature amount and distribution 

of rain-fall distances irom sea board, Great Lakes, Ohio river, Mis- 
sissippi river, Gulf of Mexico distances and relation to other towns 

and cities relation to surrounding country. 

2. Advantages and Disadvantages of Site. 

Topography subsoil drainage wells and cess-pools facilities 

and difficulties of sewerage access easy from three directions, difficult 

from the west abundant supply of gravel for streets alDundant 

supply of clay for brick absence of water power. 

S. Plan of the City. 

Boundaries and area direction and location of streets area of 

blocks and lots width of streets and sidewalks name system of 

streets number system of houses. 

4. Distrihutvon. 

Business districts causes of location tendency away from the 

river manufacturing districts, causes of location best residence dis- 
tricts, causes of location good residence districts, causes of location 

poor residence districts, causes of location slums, causes of loca- 
tion suburban districts, causes of location value of property in 

each district relation of manufacturing districts to health and com- 
fort of residence districts. 



A STUDY OF THE CITY OF TEKRE HAUTE 85 

5. Buildings. 

JFatorials size regulations coneemiiig cost of materials 

iiu'tliods of construetion architecture. 

(>\ The People. 

Xunil)er density race sex age occupations niar- 

rieil and single death rate, etc. 

VI. THE MUNICIPALITY 

Common Council Mayor Clerk Treasurer how elected 

powers duties tlie city cliarter, compare with those of Indianapo- 
lis, Ft. Wayne, etc. 

Vir. TH.VVEL AND TRANSPORTATION 

1. Material and Condition of SlrceU. 

Pavements asphalt, brick and other cost and relative value 

sidewalks flag, cement, brick and other cost and relative value 

rules anil ordinances for construction and maintenance bridges 

amount of travel across street cleaning how done why is snow 

seldom removed? 

2. Vehicles and Passengers. 

Character of vehicles drays, trucks, omnibuses, cabs, etc. num- 
ber passing various points numtier of foot passengers passing various 

points rights and privileges of foot passengers ami vehicles. 

3. Street Railways. 

Franchises-^ — how obtained terms value routes length 

of track number of cars speed frequency capacity num- 
ber of passengers carried motive power and mechanical system cost 

of plant maintenance and running expenses cost per car mile 

l)rofits class of people using length of average ride time of day 

of greatest travel fares difl'erence between five and three-cent fares 

and its relation to income and wages rights of pul)lic to use of 

street rights of railway companies to use of streets municipal 

control or ownership of street railways compare Detroit, Toronto, 

Glasgow. 

4. Relatidti of Tnink TAiie Railroad.s to City. 

Stations freight house and yards crossings number of pas- 
senger trains nunil)er of passengers nund)er of freight trains 

amount of freight shipped from and delivered to the city express 

companies and express business. 

■'). Main Wagon Road.^ Leading into the City and Amount of Travel on Eaeh. 

G. Tran-iportatiijn on ]Vaba.-<h River. 

\III. COMMUNICATION 

1. Telegraph and Telephone Companies. 

Service rates use of streets and alleys by. 



80 STUDIES IN INDIANA GEOGRAPHY 

2. Mail Facilities and Delivery. 

Amount of mail delivered and sent income of office organiza- 
tion. 
■>'. Municipal or Governmental Control of Telegraiih and Teleplvone Service. 

IX. POLICE DEPARTMENT 

Officers Courts apj^ointments responsibility crimes 

arrests convictions sentences enforcement of law. 

X. FIRE DEPARTMENT 

Officers employes companies engine houses engines 

alarm boxes eciuipment efficiency cost- number of fires 

ability to deal with a great conflagration. 

XI. ENGINEERINCi DEPARTMENT 

Employes -appointments duties imj)ortance of. 

XII. PUBLIC HEALTH 

/. Biiard of Health. 
Appointment powers regulations infectious diseases. 

2. Disposed of Sewage and Garbage. 

Extent to which cess-pools and vaults are used danger.? extent 

to which sewers are used system of sewerage. 

3. Cefineteries. 

.'/.. Water Supply. 

Private use of wells dangers public franchise, how ob- 
tained terms charges use of public supply for domestic pur- 
poses — —for fires — — peojile who most need public water supply 

municipal ownership of public water supply compare Chicago, Buffalo, 

Manchester, (England), etc. 

XIII. LIGHTING 

1. Pidilic and Private. 
l*]lectric gas oil. 

2. Frn.Dcli i'^e'i. 

How obtained terms cost. 

3. Municipal Ownership) (f Elect ric Lighting and Gufi riant.<. 

XIV. FINANCE 

Assessment taxation revenue expenditures comparative 

cost of city governments ot United States and foreign countries. 

XV. BUSINESS 

1. lloiiu Prodnds. 

Grain live stock timl)er brick clays, etc. 

2. Sources and Cost of Power. 



A STUDY OF Till', CITY OP TERRE HAUTE 87 

3. Manufactures. 

Wliiskey beer tools barrel stuff cars iron goods 

l)riek (quantity and value. 

4. Wholesale Houses. 

Character volume nf Imsiness territory supplied. 

5. Riiail Hdu.-^cs. 

Character volume of l)usiness. 

0. Banks, Insurance, Building and Loan Aasociatvim, etc. 

XVI. DISTKinUTIOX OF WEALTH 

Individual wealth how aaiuired rich men incomes cost 

,,f livhig expenditures for food clothing rent luxuries, etc. 

XVII. LAr.OR 

Labor organizations strikes wages in dilTcrcnt empinynients. 

XVIII. I'ROFKSSiONS 

Uivinity law medicine teaching ^^journalism engin- 
eering cost of preparation for incomes and salaries. 

XIX. EDUCATIO.N" 
;. Piihlk- Si-honk. 

Organization courses of study buildings attendance 

school [)opulation teachers salaries cost Indiana State 

Normal School and its relations to the city. 
2. Private Schools. 

Ros? Polytechnic Institute Coates College Commercial Colleges 

teachers of music, dancing, etc. 

■J. Libraries. 

Size circulation character of books read influence, etc. 

4. The Press. 

Newspapers and periodicals puldished and circulated in the city 

newspapers and periodicals published elsewhere and linulated in city. 

5. Art (lolleries. 
I'^xhiliils and collections. 

a. Litrranj, Art and Mu^ieal Societies and Clvhs. 

Nuinl)er membershij) character of work lecture courses 

concerts, etc. 

XX. RKMCION 

Churches buildings value of property income members 

-attendance clergy Sunday schools missions Young 



Men's Christian Association. 

XXI. CHAUITIES 

Hospitals dispensary alms house orphan asylums insti- 



tutions and societies what is being done for the dependent classes- 



88 STUDIES IN INDIANA GEOGRAPHY 

for tramps for criminals for children causes of poverty and 

crime prevention and relief of j)overty and crime. 

XXir. RECREATION AND AJIUSEMENTS 

Hunting fishing boating cycling, etc. parks athletic 

sports races, etc. public and private entertainments plays, 

etc. picnics excursions summer resorts- — —places of resort and 

amusement for laboring men should thej' be open on Sunday ? 

XXIII. HOME LIFE 

In families of different races incomes education intelligence 

and social jiosition relations of husband and wife divorces re- 
lations of parents and children relations of home life to idleness, 

vagrancy, vice and crime. 

XXIV. SOCIAL ORGANIZATION 

Groupings on basis of race, religion, politics, wealth, occupation, etc. 

standards of taste, intelligence and morals secret, fraternal and 

other societies peculiar customs and habits jjeculiaritics of lan- 
guage and speech. 

XXV. REGULATION OF CONDUCT 

Influence of education, religion, home training, public opinion, law 

prevalent motives of action. 

XXVI. FAMOUS MEN AND WOMEN OF TERRE HAUTE 
XXVII. PROBLEMS OF MUNICIPAL ECONOMY 

Is the problem of city management essentially a political, or an 

economic and l)usiness problem? relation of political parties to city 

government city government in the United States, past and present 

the civic and municipal renaissaiice. 

1. Physical Probleins. 

Cheap, rapid and safe transit cheap and efficient lighting pure, 

cheap and abundant water supply, universally distributed ample and 

efficient sewerage suppression of nuisances the smoke nuisance 

the whistle nuisance the manufacturing nuisance the garbage 

and dust nuisance, etc. 

2. Political Problems. 

Purity of elections honest administration of government expert 

and competent officers and employes enforcement of law. 

3. Social and Moral Problems. 

Prevention and suj)pression of drunkenness, poverty, vice and crime 

help for dependent and criminal classes increase of intelligence 

and morality improvement in the cleanliness and beauty of the city. 



A STUDY OF THE CITY OF TERRE HAUTE 89 

The outlino is inlfiulcd to be as nearl}- exhaustive as possible, and is 
as well adapted for university students as for lower grades. Tiie collee- 
tion of facts could be well done by pupils of the seventh and eighth 
grade, and with them would serve as an ever-accessible and unrivaled 
field for the study of home geography, and as a basis for the study of 
cities in general. In any grade the following advantages may be derived 
from such a plan: (1) The use of individual experience and observa- 
tion. (2) The acquirement of direct, personal and lirst-hand knowledge. 
(3) The value in itself, as information, of such knowledge of facts and 
conditions which intimately concern the welfare and conduct of every 
student. (4) The increase of general intelligence. (5) The mental dis- 
cipline obtained by the classification of such facts, and the discovery of 
their relation to each other and to other facts. (6) The conclusions 
which may be drawn from them by inductive reasoning. (7) A basis in 
ex})erience for the study of other cities and countries. (8) Practical les- 
sons in the science and art of civics and economics. The higher advan- 
tages will be attained in greater proportion as the grade of the student is 
more advanced. 

At the top geography runs insensiblj' into historj^, sociology and politi- 
cal economy; in a word, into the new and comprehensive science of de- 
mology. It is scarcely worth while to try to discover the cleavage plane 
between them. This paper is offered as a contribution to the method of 
study along this plane. 



X.— A SHORT HISTORY OF THE GREAT LAKES='= 

FRANK BTRSLEY TAYLOR. F. G. S. A. 

INTRODUCTION 

111 studying the geographical development of Indiana, while we are, 
of course, concerned chiefl}- with the area of the state itself, a thorough 
and coniiirehcnsive treatment of the subject would require the consider- 
ation of some contiguous areas many times larger. For Indiana has not 
developed in anj' sense as a separate unit, Init rather as a fractional jiart 
of a very much larger area. One of the most important outside intiu- 
ences, especially in its bearing upon the development of Indiana's phy- 
siography, has been the existence of the valleys or basins of the Great 
Lakes, which lie toward the north. The direct influence of these basins 
has been comparatively small, but indirectly, through their effects upon 
the continental glaciers or ice-sheets, their influence has been quite im- 
portant. This article, however, is designed to present a brief outline of 
the whole lake histor}', so that it will not be possible to dwell at much 
length upon its relations to Indiana. 

The Present Lakes 

The Laurentian, or Great Lakes of North America, form the largest 
.system of fresh-water bodies in the world. No other, unless it be the un- 
connected group of lakes in Central Africa, bears any comparison with 
it. The Victoria Nyanza, which is the largest fresh-water lake known 
elsewhere, has an estimated area of between 25,000 and 30,000 square 
miles. The area of Lake Superior is 31,200 square miles, of Lake Huron 
23,800 and of Lake Michigan 22,450. Lakes Erie and Ontario are con- 
si<lerably smaller, the surface of the former being only 9,960 square miles 
and the latter 7,240. The total area of the whole lake system with its 
connecting cliannels is 95,275 square miles. 

The water-shed of a lake is the land surface which drains into it. 
Lakes Superior, Michigan and Huron each have water-sheds considerably 
less than twice the area of their own surfaces. That of Lake Erie is 
about two and a half times its water surface, and that of Lake Ontario 
three times. The mean annual rainfall of the St. Lawrence basin is about 



* This article lias been revised in the light of the latest discoveries, espeeially for this re-issue. 
The text has been largely re-written and the maps are all newly drawn. 



A SIKH.'T IIISTiilJV OK TIIK (illKAT LAKES 01 

thii-tv-Diic iiu-hos, and the iiicaii clrpth of wattT I'vaixiratiMl annually 
iVdiii the surface of the lakes is something between twenty and thirty 
inehes. The amount of precipitation on the water surface is therefore 
nearly conipensatcd by the amount evaporated from the same area, so 
that the volume of the outflow of the lakes is almost exactly equal to the 
rainfall on their water-sheds, less all the evaporation that takes place 
from the land and all the rivers and small lakes before the water reaches 
the Great Lake basins. 

Lake Superior has an elevation above sea level of G02 feet; Lakes Hu- 
ron and Michigan 581 ; Lake Erie 573, and Lake Ontario 247. The greatest 
depth of Lake Superior is 1,008 feet; of Lake Michigan 870 feet; of Lake 
Huron 730 feet; of Lake Ontario 738 feet, and of Lake Erie 210 feet. It 
follows that four of the basins reach depths below sea level. Lake Su- 
perior reaches 406 below; Lake Huron 149; Lake Michigan 289, and 
Lake Ontario 491. The mean depths of the lakes, however, is consider- 
ably less, the greatest being Lake Superior at 475 feet, while Lake Mich- 
gan is about 325, Lake Ontario 300, Lake Huron 250 and Lake Erie 
only 70 feet. 

The volume of discharge of the several outlets is as follows: St. Mary's 
river, outlet of Lake Superior, 86,000 cubic feet per second; St. Clair 
river, outlet of Lake Huron, 235,000; Niagara river, outlet of Lake 
Erie, 2()5,000; St. Lawrence river, outlet of Lake Ontario, 300,000. The 
volume of water contained in all the lakes taken together is about 6,000 
cul)ic miles, of which Lake Superior contains a little less than half. This 
would k(!ep Niagara Falls running at its present rate for about one hun- 
dred years.* 

General Geological Rel.vtions 

In tlieir general geological relations the Great Lakes are only a part of 
a much larger .system of basins which reaches, in fact, clear across the 
continent from the Atlantic coast to the shores of the Arctic Ocean. 
Lake Wihnipeg, Lake Athabasca, Great Bear Lake and Great Slave Lake 
all belong to the same chain and some of them are very large. There 
are several other depressions which have the same relation to the geo- 
logical structure, and are of the same age, but which are now occupied by 
arms of the sea. Of these the G ulf of St. Lawren('e and the Gulf of Maine 
are the largest.-- Most of the lake basins are excavated out of what are 
called the Paleozoic rocks and mostly along the line of contact l^etween 
these and the crystalline rocks, granites, gneisses, etc., of an older or 
Archa'an age. The lakes mostly lie where the edges of the Paleozoic strata 
are slightly upturned, and were in lonsequence weak and more easily 
eroded away. This is the ease with the Ontario, Erie, Huron, Georgian 

"Tlu'sc smtislics lire Uikiii from " The 1 jikcs of North Amcrieii," by I'rofessor 1. ('. ftussell. of the 
L'liiversity of Micbigiiu. 



92 STUDIES IN INDIANA GEOGRAPHY 

Bay and Michigan basins. Lake Superior, however, is probably an ex- 
ception. Counting the height of its coast lands, its basin is much the 
deepest of all. Although it has crystalline rocks near part of its south 
side as well as on the north, east and west, there is, however, some evi- 
dence that its basin was once occupied, at least in large part, by softer 
rocks of later ages. In the Ontario and Erie l)asins the edges of the 
strata project slightly upward towards the north ; in the Huron and 
Georgian Bay basins towards the east, northeast and north, and in the 
Michigan basin towards the west and northwest. 

Theoeies of Origin 

A number of theories have been advanced to account for the origin of 
the Great Lakes. One of the earliest was tliat of the famous French 
traveler, C. F. Volney, who came to this country in 1783 to study its soil 
and climate. He was much impressed with the greath depth of Lake 
Ontario, especially near its south shore, and with the high, bold cliffs of 
limestone that stand only a few miles back. Volnej' concluded that 
Lake Ontario is the crater of an "extinguished volcano," and that it was 
made by volcanic exjslosions which blew away tlie rocks that once filled 
the basin. But Volney was only keeping in line with the contemporary 
idea, for DeLuc, who was one of the most eminent geologists, held, twenty 
years later, that the widely scattered or "erratic" boulders which cover 
the plains of northern Switzerland had been fired as bombs out of vol- 
canoes. It was left for Louis Agassiz and his contemporaries, about sixty 
years ago, to prove that tliese Ijoulders were carried out from the Alps and 
spread over the jjlain by slowly moving masses of ice — by great glaciers 
now extinct. 

The lake Ijasins have also been supposed by some to be rock basins or 
hollows made merely l_>y the crumpling and folding of the rocks of the 
earth's surface. We shall see later that none, except possibly Lake 
Superior, in a qualified sense, are of this character, although eartli move- 
ments appear to have had much to do in other ways with their formation. 

Probably the first steps toward a scientific inquiry into the origin of 
the Great Lakes were those of the early followers of Agassiz. He first 
pointed out the fact that the whole region of the Northern States and 
the adjacent parts of Canada had been completely covered by a mighty 
glacier. The drift which overspreads these regions was appealed to by 
some as evidence of the glacier's power to scoop out solid rocks. 

But the fanciful guesses of Volney and the theories of the early gla- 
cialists have gradually given place to the results of methodical explora- 
tion, so that to-day the making of the basins of the Great Lakes is 
attributed chiefly to four distinct causes; viz., to the wearing, eroding 
action of streams; to the uplifting and tilting of the land; to the ob- 
structing action of the glacial drift and to the wearing-down or abrading 



A SHORT HISTORY OF THE GREAT LAKES 93 

action of the glacier itself. All these causes have playetl tludr part. The 
lake basins were not gouged out entire by the ice-sheet, although it un- 
doubtedly widened them to some extent by tearing away the weaker 
ledges of their sides, especially where the ice mass moved against the 
rocks with full force. But the ice-sheet had little or no tendency to 
deepen them. They arc mainly old river valleys uplifted and tilted by 
movements of the solid earth and choked up and obstructed here and 
there by a glacial drift. 

PRE-GLACIAL AGES (Pre-Pleistocone) 
T^E Pre-Glaci.\l Cycle of Erosion 
Tlie northeastern (juarter of the continent, including Indiana and 
pnilialily all nf the fireat Lake region, was raised up out of the sea some 
time not long (speaking in a geological sense) after the last of the coal 
beds of Pennsylvania had been deposited. It is not possible to say when 
that was, even approximately, in years, but all authorities seem to agree 
that it was at least several millions of years ago. The thing for us to 
note especially here, is the very great age of this part of the continent as 
a land surface. Through all the long ages since the Appalachian moun- 
tains were uplifted the region of Imliana and the Great Lakes, and prob- 
ably the whole of Canada lying nortli of the lakes and the St. Lawrence 
river, have been a land surface, with sunshine, rain, wind, frost, chemical 
solution, creeks, rivers, the waves of lakes and the sea, vegetation and 
animal life coni?tantly at work upon it, sculi>turing and wearing down 
its surface. I\Iild climatic conditions had prevailed, and at the end of 
this long cycle of er()si(m, the whole surface of the land was deeply de- 
cayed, soft, almost rotten. The rivers had gone on for thousands and 
thousands of years deei)ening and widening their valleys and no dis- 
turbing element had intervenetl to seriously interrupt or modify their 
work. The decay of the surface was probaldy not so ilee]) as that of the 
southern Appalachians, as may be seen, for instance, at Asheville, North 
Carolina, where uninterrupted decay has gone on for a still longer time. 
But it was certainly not very dillercnt from that. It proljably resembled 
that part of Wisconsin which was not invaded by the ice of the glacial 
period, and the unglaciatcd area in Southern Indiana. In such regitms, 
besides deeply decayed rock and soil, there are clifls, "chimneys," "sugar- 
loaf rocks and other very old and fniil relics of subaerial erosion. As 
. a product of the long decay, a vast amount of loose material was left 
covering the whole surface of the country. In this way. chieliy, Wiis pre- 
pared the enormous (juantity of debris which was afterwards crushed and 
ground up by the ice-sheet, transported in large ([uantities by it hun- 
dreds of miles, and linally spread over the surface of regicnis far away. 
When the first ice-sheet began to gather upnn the highlands north of 



94 STUDIES IN INDIANA GEOGEiiPHY 

the St. Lawrence river, the surface of the lake region presented a very 
different aijpearance from what wo see to-day. There were proliably, then, 
.no great lakes like those of the present time in this region, but only wide 
open valleys instead. Or, if the lakes were already in existence, they 
had i)robal)ly only very recently been produced by an uplift of the land 
which had tilted the old valleys in such a way as to cause them to hold 
water. 

When the first ice came, the cutting dow-n of the land by the streams 
had been far developed. The greater rivers had wide, open valleys; the 
lesser rivers flowed in valleys of comparatively great depth but moderate 
width, while the little creeks and brooks had each its own deep, narrow 
steep-sided gorge. This was especially true'of the country bordering the 
lakes on the soutli, as in Western New York and Ohio, while in the hard, 
crystalline rocks of the north the topography developed was still more 
rough, as in the region east of Georgian Bay. 

The proof of this condition is found in the discovery of many valleys 
deeply buried under the drift, and in occasional remnants of the old 
decayed surface itself. Buried valleys and gorges are common through- 
out the whole drift-covered area as far as known. One now filled with 
glacial drift, cuts acro.ss the neck of land l)etwcen Lake Erie and the west 
end of Lake Ontario, as though Niagara Falls had sawed its way through 
that .same region before. In Western New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio 
many buried valleys have been found of rivers of considerable size which 
formerly flowed northward to Lake Erie, opposite to their present 
courses. The upper Ohio is one of these, which had its valley to the 
north filled with drift, and was in consequence turned into a lake which 
overflowed to the west and finally cut down the obstructing barrier on 
that side and found a course to the Mississippi. Indeed, we owe it to 
the last glacier that the Great Lakes are wdiat they are to-day — brim full 
and standing nearly 600 feet above the sea. The tilting up of the land, 
alone, would have made the Lakes in the first place. But Niagara Falls 
Avould have speedily cut back to Lake Erie and drained it off, and prob- 
ably also lowered the level of Lakes Michigan and Huron, while the St. 
Mary's river would soon have brought Lake Superior down also. On- 
tario and the three upper Lakes would have continued to exist, much re- 
duced in magnitude, but Erie would probably have become extinct. 
Thus the glaciers, and the last one in particular, have acted as restora- 
tives by choking up the narrow parts of the outlet valleys, and so raising 
the level of the waters and compelling the rivers to find new courses and 
begin their cutting over again. 

The state of Indiana was a part of the ancient land surface, and suffered 
tlie jirolonged decay and erosion along with the rest. In the unglaciated 
part of the state south of Indianapolis, the old eroded surface may be 
seen to-day, and in the western part of the state there are some places 



A SHORT HISTORY OF THE GREAT LAKES 05 

that fallow it only slightly luodifieil by glacial action. There are probablv 
many buried valleys in the northern and northeastern jjarts of the state 
where the drift is very deep, but none have yet been found equal to some 
of those in neighboring states. A lioring near the northern state line 
passed down through a great depth of drift and reached the old rock sur- 
face at a level slightly below the present surface of Lake Erie. Too little, 
however, is known as yet, concerning the rock surface beneath the drift 
to enable us to say much about it. We do not know what its drainage 
system was. Although Indiana fronts on Lake Michigan along a space 
of about forty miles at its northwest corner, the present drainage of 
that part of the state is determined by the configuration of the drift 
surfiice and only a very narrow strip, about ten miles wide, along 
the shore drains into the lake. It is possible that in pre-glacial times 
the drainage of Indiana was more intimately related to the lake valleys. 
The relations of the present time, however, afiord no indication whatever 
of the earlier conditions of drainage. A small area along the northern 
line of the state now drains to Lake Michigan through the St. -Joseph 
river of Michigan, and another small part drains eastward to Lake Erie 
through the Maumee river. But the arrangement of both these systems 
appears to be entirely dependent upon the present drift topography, so 
that the earlier drainage of both areas may have been entirely different. 

THE LAKES IN THE GLACIAL, OR PLEISTOCENE PERIOD 
The Lake Basixs a.nd the Ice-Sheets 

The glacial period, properly speakiqg, comprises the whole period of 
time from the first advance of ice as an ice-sheet down to its last and 
final disappearance. The question whether the period, as a whole, com- 
prised two or more distinct epochs of glaciation with warm epochs be- 
tween, or only one with minor variations, has been very much in contro- 
versy for some years. But the facts have constantly gathered in support 
of those who favor diversity, rather than of those who favor unity, and it 
now seems to be well established that there have been at least two or 
three, or possibly even four or five, distinct epochs in the glacial period, 
each with its own great ice-sheet. 

The growth of the ice-sheets was extremely slow. Fur some as yet 
unexplained reason the climate gradually grew colder, and the winter's 
snows in the regions surrounding Hudson Bay began to exceed the sum- 
mer's melting and evaporation, and as this went on year after year and 
century after century, a small ice-sheet formed on the high plateau of 
the Laurentide mountains north of Quebec, and gradually spread away 
over all the surrounding country. Other sheets like it were started in 
other high parts of the north, and all of them finally blended together 
as one grand glacier covering the whole northeastern quarter of the con- 
(;— 7 



96 STUDIES IN IXDIAXA GEOGRAPHY 

tinent. ^^'hen the maximum extent of the ice was attained, the whole 
region of the Great Lakes was deeply buried under it, and the front of 
the ice reached southward to Nantucket, Long and Staten Islands; ex- 
tended across New Jersey and Pennsylvania in a zigzag line to the south- 
west corner of New York; then across the northwestern corner of Penn- 
sylvania and Central Ohio to a point near Cincinnati, where it pushed 
over a few miles into Kentucky; then back into Southern Central Indiana; 
across Southern Illinois, Central Missouri, Eastern Kansas and Nebraska ; 
and finally across the Dakotas and Montana to British America. [See 
map, page 33.] Then, for some equally unexplained reason, the great 
glacier halted, and finally withdrew again northward to the obscure re- 
gions whence it came, and its retreat was in the same order and as gradual 
as its advance had been. The advance and recession in each case was 
accompanied by many minor oscillations, with re-advances apparently 
periodic, as though the ice front had gone two steps forward and one back 
in advancing, and one forward and two back in retreating. 

This is substantially the story of each of the separate ice-sheets. But 
each successive one varied a little from its predecessor in the limits of 
its advance, and so did not stop at the same line. In the west, each one 
fell short in most places, of the mark reached by its predecessor, while 
in the east, it appears probable that the last one in some places over- 
reached all its predecessors. The ice of each sheet carried boulders, 
gravel, sand and clay frozen fast in its lower layers, and it was continually 
dropping some part of what it had and picking up more. Enormous 
quantities of this material lodged in the depressions in the rock surface 
beneath. But part of it was carried forward to the front where it was 
dropped at the melting edge. Where the ice front .stood a long time in 
one place, a ridge of debris accumulated and was left on the final with- 
drawal of the ice as a terminal moraine. 

There is a complex series of these moraines extending back northward 
from the extreme front ot the last ice-sheet. Their chief interest to vis in 
connection with the lake history is that they show clearly how the ice- 
sheet was related to the lake basins at successive stages of retreat. As 
the ice came down from the north and northeast over the uneven sur- 
face of the country, it had more or less pronounced currents of flow. It 
naturally moved faster and farther forward in the main valleys where it 
met the least resistance, and lagged behind in the higher, hilly regions- 
When the ice began to rise above the southern rims of the basins it 
spread away over the adjacent plains in great sheets that fitted them- 
selves to the wide, flat valleys with marvelous exactness, and even felt 
the influence of the lesser topographic features. 

At this stage the ice-front had a lobate form, each lake and great bay 
marking the place of a southward jirojecting blunt arm or lobe of ice. 
The ice-lobes spreading from the several basins finally blended together, 



A ^IIOUT III.^IXJRY OF TlIK GUEAT LAKES 97 

and when tlie whole sheet had reached its maximum extent the lake 
basins had lost much of tjieir influence upon the flow, and the tinal front 
line fitted itself to the local topography almost as though the lake basins 
had not existed. At its climax the ice flowed over the great lakes as a 
river flows over a hole in the bottom of its bed. When the ice-front had 
retreated nearly to the lakes it again became segregated into distinct lobes 
with sharp, re-entrant angles between. The lands ])etwccn the lakes 
were the first to be left bare, and the ice lingered last upon the north and 
northeast sides of the basins. 

Three glacier lobes, corresponding to as many basins toward the north, 
entered Indiana: the Erie (with which was comltined the lobe from Lake 
Huron) covered the eastern part of the state, and the Saginaw and Michi- 
gan lobes combined to cover the northern and western parts. The com- 
bined effect of the extent, relative strengtii, oscillations, conflicts and the 
relative positions of these lobes was the prime factor in shaping the 
topography of the northern half of the state. With the probable excep- 
tion of the Wabash below Attica, every stream in this area had its 
course determined or largely modified by the features of the drift, and 
especially by the moraines. If the lake basins had been absent or differ- 
ently located, or if the ice had advanced from a different direction, the 
drainage systems and the general arrangement of the physical features of 
this part of Indiana would have been entirely different. 

The E.\rliek I(-e-I).\mmed L.\kes of the Glaci.\l Recession 

In the region of the Great Lakes the front of the ice-sheet retreated in 
a general north-northeasterly direction, in some places more nearly east 
and in others more nearly north, according to local influences. The 
present outlets of all the Lakes,- except Lake Huron, are from their east- 
ern or northern sides. Hence, as the ice-front moved slowly back, it at 
length withdrew to a position behind the drainage-divides south of the 
Lakes and xmcovered a little of the watershed of some of the lake basins. 
At these places lakes were formed by the collection of water from rain 
and from the melting ice, and in each case the surface of the lake so 
formed was held up to the lowest level nf the divide recently uncovered 
and this point became its outlet. To the north and northeast the great 
glacier still stretched away for hundreds of miles as a continental plain 
of ice. Its deep, solid mass performed the same service, temporarily, that 
the land does to-day: it acted as a great dam, and effectually prevented 
the escape of the water in that direction. 

The exploration of the several lake basins has revealed a large number 
of old shore lines and outlets, all now abandoned. Enough has already 
been learned to show that nearly all of them were made by ice-dammed 
lakes during the glacial recession. In the beginning these glacial lakes 



98 



STUDIESilN INDIANA GEOGRAPHY 



Figures 1 and 2 represent the first and fourth stages of the earher glacial lakes. The exact position 
of the ice-front all along the line is not j'et accurately known for any particular stage. In Figure 1 
the map of the Erie lobe and Lake jMaumee is based on accurate information, but the contemporary 
positions of the other lobes are known only approximately. They may have stood a little farther 
forward or a little farther back than here represented. In Figure 2 the features are all accurately 
known except the precise positions of the Erie and Michigan lobe-fronts. 




Figures 1 and 2.— TAVO STAGES OF THE EARLIER GLACIAL LAKES. 



100 STUDIES IX INDIANA GEOGRAPHY 

were small, and each one had its own outlet and was entirely independ- 
ent of the others. But with the progressing recession of the ice they 
grew larger and larger until the dividing lands between them were left 
uncovered. Then contiguous jjairs of lakes united, and always at the 
level of the lower one. In this way the lakes kept combining and find- 
ing new outlets at lower levels as the recession went on. The stability 
of each lake depended for the time being upon the position of the ice- 
front and its relation to the higher parts of the adjacent uncovered land 
surface. This makes the relation of the lakes to each other intimately 
dependent upon the direction of the retreat. It the general retreat had 
been directly north over the whole area the history of tlie glacial lakes 
would have been entirely different fri:)m that of a retreat directly east or 
northeast. 

The lakes that were formed in front of the ice-sheet during its retreat 
across the Great Lake region were very numerous and their relations and 
changes very complex. A detailed account of their historj' would require 
much more space than can be taken here. Figures 1 and 2 will help to 
give a general idea of the changes. The history of the glacial lakes of 
the Erie and Huron basins are most fullj' known and will serve best as 
an illustration of the kind of changes that took place. 

One of the earliest of the ice-dammed lakes was Glacial Lake Maumee 
(Fig. 1), formed in the western jjart of the Maumee valley when the ice- 
front had retreated to the east from Fort ^^'ayne, which is on the lowest 
point of the western rim of the. watershed of Lake Erie. This lake cov- 
ered part of Ohio and Indiana and had its outlet westward through Fort 
Wayne to the Wabash river at Huntington. It had its most permanent 
form when the ice-front extended in a great curve convex to the west 
from Findlay, through Defiance to Adrian. Professor C. II. Dryer has 
described this lake in another chapter, and the reader is referred to that 
for fuller details. But Lake Maumee was only a beginning. For as the 
glacier continued its retreat, the lake grew larger and largei-, and would 
have continued to expand indefinitely, except for the fact that a lower 
notch in the lake rim than that at Fort Wayne was at length uncovered. 
This first lower passage was at Imlay, Michigan, due north of Detroit 
and about west of Port Huron. The discharge in this direction lowered 
the lake permanently twenty-five or thirty feet. The w^ater that went 
out this way, flowed southwest across Michigan finally reaching the 
Mississippi. 

As the retreat went on, the ice in the Erie basin finally separated from 
that which was coming southward from Lake Huron; one lobe retreating 
northeastward down Lake Erie and the other northward up the St. Clair 
valley towards Lake Huron. But the two separate ice-dams continued 
to hold the lake as before. 

With further retreat, the Huron lobe finalh^ uncovered another passage 
lower than the one at Imlav. This new outlet was on the "thumb" 



A SIIOKT IIISTOKV OF THE GREAT LAKES 



101 



well out towards it?; mid, ahout nortli-iioithwest from Port Huron. (Fig. 
2.) To this new notcli tlie level of the waters dropped again. By this 
time the retreating Saginaw glacier also held a lake in front of it, so that 
at this stage there were three lakes forming a chain; one in the Erie 
hasin, one in the Saginaw basin and one in the Lake ]\Iichigan basin. 
These three lakes have lieen nanu.l Lake Whittlesey, Lake Saginaw and 
Lake Chicago respectively. The wat(>r flowed westward through the 
chain, and finally through the southern part of the city of Chicago and 
down the Des Plaines and Illinois rivers to the Mississippi. At the next 
steji of retreat the "thumb" of Michigan was left free of ice, and Lake 
M'hittlcsey fell and blended with Lake Saginaw. This new combina- 
tion is called Lake Warren. The chain of three lakes was thus reduced 
to two, Lake Warren and Lake Chicago, and this arrangement lasted for 
a considerable time. 

At its niaxiniuni extent Lake Warren covered the south half of Lake 
Huron, including Saginaw I!ay, the whole of Lake Erie and the low 
ground between it and Lake Huron, extended eastward to within twenty 
or thirty miles of Syracu.se, N. Y. and probably covered some of the 
western end of Lake Ontario. 

In the meantime the ice was retreating in the east as well as in the 
west, and uncovering lower ground in that direction. Finally, in Central 
New York an open passage was left along the ice-fi'ont to the Mohawk 
valley at a lower level than the outlet to Lake Chicago. Then the 
discharge of Lake Warren turned eastward, and the level of the waters 
fell so as to uncover the land between Lake Huron and Lake Erie. 
Across this the dischai'ge of the upper lakes liegan to flow, and with the 
continued falling at the east, the water in the Ontario ])asin soon dropped 
below the level of Lake Erie, and then Niagara river and the Falls came 
into existence. Aliout the same time, or soon after the fall of Lake 
Warren, the ice had so far withdrawn from the northern ba.sins as to 
allow the waters of Lake Superior. Michigan and Huron to unite as one 
lake with its outlet through the St. Clair river to Lake Erie. 

The Ice-Dams 

If Wf wish to ol)tain a realizing sense of the massiveness of the ice- 
dams that held these lakes up. we niay readily do so by taking account 
of some of the facts which have been revealed by the study of the drift. 
At Defiance, the ice-front stood in alwut sixty feet of water; at Saginaw 
in about 150 feet, and at Toledo, Detroil and Port Huron in about 200 
feet. And yet, the ice-lobe in each case kept its place and fitted itself to 
the form of the valley, as revealed by the flat, low, water-laid moraines 
at these places, apparently as perfectly as though no standing water had 
been present. Tliis shows clearly how massive and .solid the ice must 
have Ijcen. It did not break u]i much and float away as icebergs, but 
was able to withstand wind and wave and its own bouvancv or tendency 



102 STUDIES IX IX'DIANA GEOGEAPHY 

to float in the water. Its front in the water must have been undercut 
by the waves and reduced to a great perpendicular or perhaps even over- 
hanging cliff of ice; but it kept its place, and built its moraine almost 
exactly where it would have built it if no water had been present. 

These lobes must have been at least 300 to 400 feet thick close to their 
edges in the lakes, and they must have been solid and compact and com- 
paratively free from cracks and crevices. This shows that their forward 
motion must have been exceedingly slow, for rapidly moving glaciers 
are always riven by many dee^D cracks and crevasses, which cause them 
to break up and float away easily when they enter deep water. 

By tracing the single terminal moraine that was made at the edge of 
the ice when its front points stood at Port Huron and Saginaw, (during 
the time of Lake Whittlesey), the immense proportions of the ice-dam 
have been disclosed (Fig. 2). The apexes at the two places mentioned 
stood on ground only a few feet above the present le^-el of Lake Huron. 
But, at the same time, the ice-front rested on the highlands 130 miles 
north of Saginaw, and also on those in Canada 180 miles northeast of 
Port Huron, at an altitude of over 1,000 feet above the present lake level. 
The cross-section of the glacier between these two highlands (about 200 
miles apart) probably had a slightly arching surface, like the ice-cap of 
Greenland, so that the depth of the ice in the middle of the lake measured 
upward from the present lake surface, must have been somewhere near 
1,500 feet. 

When the ice-sheet covered most of Indiana and crossed the Ohio river, 
the depth over central Lake Huron must have been much greater, prob- 
ably two or three times as great. At that time the ice was at least 500 
or 600 feet deep over the present site of Terre Haute, and nearly as deep 
over that of Indianapolis, and it thickened gradually northward. If an 
observer could have stood on one of the hills in Brown count}' at that 
time he would have seen to the east of him the great wall of the ice-front 
extending south towards Kentuck}', while towards the west it would 
have been seen in the distance stretching away towards the southwest. 
For hundreds of miles to the east and west, and for 2,000 miles or more 
to the north, the glaring, white desert of snow-covered ice, like that seen 
in the interior of Greenland by Nansen and Peary, would have appeared, 
stretching away out of sight with not a thing under the sun to relieve its 
cold monotony. It is hard to think of Indiana and her neighboring sis- 
ter states as being clothed in such a shroud-like mantle as this. But it 
was in large part this same ice-sheet, coming perhaps four or five times 
in succession, that covered the state with the inexhaustible soil of the 
drift, and made Indiana the fertile agricultural state that she is to day. 

In Figure 3 both positions of the ice front are located with only approximate ac- 
curacy. Each is placed in the last position in which it could have held the lake 
in front of it. The position shown for the Ontario lube is earlier in time tlian tliat 
of the Ottawa, for Lake Iroquois was drained off before Lake Algonquin. 



104 STUDIES IN INDIANA GEOGRAPHY 

Glacial Lakes Algonquin and Iroquois 
After the fall of Lake Warren, Lake Erie became independent, and 
only two large glacial lakes remained in the Great Lake area. (Fig. 3.) 
One filled the three upper basins and is known as Lake Algonquin. Its 
outlet was south to Lake Erie ; for the ice-sheets still covered the lands 
to the east and northeast of Georgian Bay, where the only other lower 
ways of escape were situated, as the land stood at that time. The Chi- 
cago outlet was then apparently about 100 feet above the lake level, and 
so did not serve as an outlet for Lake Algonquin. Finally, the retreat- 
ing ice uncovered Balsam Lake at the head of the Trent valley in On- 
tario, east of the south end of Georgian Bay, and the discharge of Lake 
Algonquin shifted to tliat place. The erosion effects of the great outlet 
river are quite plain along the cour.*e of the Trent valley. The modern 
Trent river is a comparatively small, stream. Probalily the head of this 
outlet was not much below the level of the St. Clair outlet at that time, 
so that the change produced only a slight lowering of the lake. 

About fifty miles northeast of the north end of Georgian Bay lies Lake 
Nipissing in an east-and-west trough which leads through the highlands 
to the Ottawa valley. Lake Nipi.ssing, itself discharges, westward through 
French river to Georgian Bay. But it is only three miles across a low, 
swamjiy divide at the head of the lake to Trout Lake which dis- 
charges eastward through the Mattawa river into the Ottawa. This old 
divide, called tlie Nipissing Pass, is somewhat less tlian 100 feet above 
Georgian Bay, and the town of North Bay is built upon the west end of 
it on the Shore of Lake Nipissing. To the eastward for about 100 miles 
the Mattawa and Ottawa valleys extend as a narrow trough, 700 to 800 
feet deep. As things were then, this trough was much the lowest opening 
in the rim of Lake Algonquin ; but, so long as it was filled with ice, the 
lake kept its level. Thus, a relatively small ice-dam was aide to main- 
tain a very large lake. This dam continued to hold the water in jilace 
until the ice filled only twenty-five or thirty miles of the lower, narrow 
part of the Ottawa valley. If no other changes had interfered the lake 
would have dropped its level 500 feet when the dam broke. But before 
the dam gave way there were upheavals of the land which tilted up the 
whole I'egion northeast of the lakes, so that when the lu-eak finally came 
the lake dropped much less than 500 feet, and it pi-ol)al)ly fell rather 
slowly. 

These same upheavals produced another important effect. They 
shifted the discharge of Lake Algonquin back again from the Trent 
valley to the St. Clair river, and this restoration took place a consider- 
al.ile time before the Ottawa ice-dam broke. At its maximum. Lake 
Algonquin was considerably larger than the present combined areas of 
Lakes Superior, ^Michigan and Huron, including Georgian Bay. 

The water that gathered in the Ontario basin was held up by the ice- 
sheet which formed a dam across the St. Lawrence vallev northeast of 



A SIKIKT HISTiiKY i iK THE (iliKAT LAKKS 10.1 

the lake. This filaeial lake is known as Lake Inxjuois. Its outlet was 
through the ^^ohawk valley, ami at its greatest extent it was eonsidera- 
bly larger than ]>resent Lake (.)ntario. After Lake Algonquin had begun 
its career, it was some time before the eastern water fell to the level of 
Lake Iroquois. Lake Algontiuiii endured also for a considerable time 
after Lake Iroquois had l)een drained off; so that the former was the 
longer-lived of the two and was, in fact, the longestdived of all the gla- 
cial lakes within the St. Lawrence basin. 

The reality of the great ice-dams that held u]> the larger lakes is no 
longer to be doubted. For within the last two or three years the beds 
made by the temporary rivers that drained them oft' when the dams 
gradually gave way, have Ijeen found and partially explored. Tho.se of 
falling Lake Warren are in Western New York, those of Lake Iroquois on 
the northeastern flanks of the Adirondack mountains, and those of Lake 
Algonquin, less fully explored, are in the Mattawa and Ottawa valleys. 

The Lake Beaches 

One of the most reniarkalile things about the old shore lines of the 
Great Lake region is the fact that they are not horizontal when comjiared 
with present water levels. The beaches at the western end of the Erie 
ba.sin, and the Algominin beach in the east half of the Superior basin 
are substantially horizontal. But all the rest are more or less inclined 
upward in a northeasterly direction. The inclination is not the .same 
in different beaches, being generally greatest in the older and higher 
ones; and it varies considerably in the same beach in different places. 
That all the beaches were horizontal when they were made seems certain. 
It follows that their present departure from that attitude is a measure of 
the amount of upheaval of the land since they were made. The older, 
higher beaches record the net result of many changes. But the lower, 
younger beaches record only such changes as occurred after they were 
made. Hence, theoretically, the deformation of the latter ought to be 
generally simjiler and show fewer irregularities. 

The Algonquin beach rises from twenty-iivc feet above the lake at 
Port Huron to 63-5 feet above it near North Bay, Ontario, and it is a little 
over 400 feet above Lake Superior in nearly the whole of that basin. It 
is 20-5 feet above the lake at ]\Iackinac Island, but descends southward 
and passes under Lake ^lichigan proliably about 100 feet at Chicago. 
The Iroquois beach also rises toward the northeast in tlu' Ontai'io basin. 

THE LAKES IN THE POST-GLACIAL OB I'UST PLEISTO- 
CENE PERIOD 

The Nipissinc; Great Lakes 
AVe come now to a part of tiie lake histcry whicli has scarcely any con- 



106 STUDIES IN INDIANA GEOGRAPHY 

nection with Indiana, but which is of great interest to geologists [and 
geographers generally. This interest arises partlj' from the fact that^this 
epoch of the lake history is so recent, certainly mostly within the period 
of human occupation of America, and partly from its intimate relation 
to Niagara Falls and its gorge and the bearing which these have upon the 
date of certain great changes which have taken jjlace in very recent geo- 
logical time in the northeastern part of the continent. 

When the water went out of Lake Algonquin, the glacial history of 
the Great Lakes came to an end. The water in the three upper basins 
then fell to the level of the Nij^issing pass and it became their permanent 
outlet. (Fig. 4.) This arrangement lasted for a relatively long period 
.of time, for the beach which the waves of that time made around all three 
of the basins is the strongest and most heavily developed of any in the 
Great Lake area. On account of its association with the Nipissing pass, 
it is called the Nipissing beach. Although it is now found at heights of 
more than 100 feet above the present lakes in the extreme northeast, the 
connecting channels between the three lakes of that time were only a 
little wider or deeper than those of to-day. In Mackinac Straits the 
Nipissing beach is about forty-five feet above Lake Huron, and the strait 
was formerly about a mile wider. At Sault Ste. Marie the beach is about 
fifty feet above Lake Superior. The St. Mary's river of that time was 
about a mile and a-half wider than now, and was more like a strait than 
a liver. The Nipissing beach was, therefore, the shore line of three great 
lakes which were almost as distinct, and had nearly the same relations to 
each other as the corresponding three lakes of today. So they are called 
the Nipissing Great Lakes. 

Many evidences attest the long duration of the lakes at the level of the 
Nipissing beach. On a shore which is comjjaratively new it is a common 
thing to find bays almost cut off from the main lake by long slender 
gravel bars or spits which have been built out across their mouths by the 
waves. There are fine examples of this type on the present shore of Lake 
Erie about the west end, and on the east and south shores of Lake On- 
tario. But when a shoe line is old, like the Nipissing beach, such bays 
are either filled up entirely or are cut ofi by wide sand or gravel plains 
and turned into separate lakes. There are a large number of small 
lakes on the coasts of the present upper Great Lakes which were 



Figure 4. The Nipissing beacli is confined to the basins of Lakes Superior, Mich- 
igan and Huron as shown by the heavy Hue. This beach has been explored on 
nearly all the shores. From North Bay eastward forty miles to the Ottawa river, 
the scoured bed of the former outlet stream is very well marked. The shaded por- 
tion of the map represents the contemporary area of the sea. It entered the Ontario 
basin, but dipped under the present lake along the south side and the west end. 
The limits of the marine area are indicated with only approximate accuracy. 



I. 



CO 



> 






7: 




,.Jr^8s*«^'**'^^^^^*w'^ 

^.^ w Nosan/i 






108 STUDIES IN INDIANA GEOGRAPHY 

produoed in this way by the lodging of the shore-drift of the Nipissing 
beach. 

In the Mattawa valley the work done Ijy the outlet river shows that it 
flowed for a long time. 

Like the older beaches above, the Nipissing beach is not now horizon- 
tal, but is tilted up at the northeast. The latter, however, is quite re- 
markable from the fact that although it is tilted, it shows no measureable 
irregularities in its plane. In this it differs in a marked way from the 
other beaches. From the northwest side of Lake Superior to the south 
side of Georgian Bay, and from the north end of Green Bay to the north- 
east corner of Lake Superior and the north side of Lake Huron the plane 
in which this beach lies appears to be perfecth' uniform. 

The direction of maximum rise is about north twent3--seven degrees 
east, and the rate of rise is nearly seven inches per mile. Thus, the 
Nipissing beach slopes downward toward the south-southwest and j^asses 
under the water of each of the present lakes. The depth at which it 
passes under the present lake level is estimated to be about forty feet at 
Port Huron, 100 feet at Chicago and twenty-five feet at Duluth. 

The uplift which tilted the Nipissing plane up at the northeast, raised 
the outlet at North Bay, and would have raised the level of all three 
lakes correspondingly, had not another outlet been found. Soon after 
the tilting of the land began, the head of the St. Clair river became lower 
than North Bay and the outflow therefore turned to it. The arrange- 
ment of the lakes then inaugurated by this change has continued, appar- 
ently without interruption, to the present day. 

A wide region lying east and northeast of the upper lakes has also had 
an eventful history in recent times. Its close connection with the lakes 
makes a consideration of some events of its history indispensable to a 
full understanding of the lake history. 

The Chami'lain Sub-mergexce and Uplift 

It has long been known that the northeastern part of the continent has 
been very recently uplifted out of the sea. Fossil shells of marine species, 
bones of whales and seals and marine fish have been found in various 
places, especially in the valleys of Lake Champlain and the St. Lawrence 
river, in deposits which were uplifted at that time. The amount of ma- 
rine submergence was only a few feet at New York and Boston, but in- 
creased northward to over 300 feet in Maine and New Brunswick, over 
400- at the northern line of New York and over 500 at Montreal and 
about 600 at points farther northeast. Marine fossils have been found 
as far up the St. Lawrence as Brockville, nearly to Lake Ontario, and up 
the Ottawa river as far as Lake Coulonge, a little below Pembroke. The 
bones of a whale were found in a gravel bed near Smith's Falls, Ontario, 
many years ago 440 feet above the sea, and the top of the beach in which 



A SHORT HISTdliV i>\- THE GREAT LAKES 109 

tliry wcvo iMiried is about thirty feet higher. The sea at that time extend- 
ed through a strait into Lake Ontario, and up the valley of tlie Ottawa a 
considerable distance above Pemliroke. ( Fig. 4, shaded area .) The char- 
acter of the fossils and also the very youthful condition of all the river 
beds lielow the old marine level, prove the recentness of the uplift that 
raised the fossiliferous Champlain beds out of the sea. 

Turning our attention now to the upper lakes, we find that the same 
characters prevail below the Xipissing beach, except that there is no evi- 
dence of marine life. The very youthful river beds and shore lines below 
the Nipissing beach are quite marked, in contrast with the older charac- 
ter of the forms above, corresponding closely in this respect with the 
evidence of newness in the area of the Champlain Sea to the east. 
These two great areas, the marine on the east and tlie fresh-water on the 
west, lie close together, almost interlocking, so that it seems certain that 
it was one and the same uplift that affected both. When the Chamidain 
beds were uplifted out of the sea, that same movement ui)lifted and tilted 
the area of the Great Lakes. The evidence points plainly to the conclu- 
sion that it was this uplift that tilted the Nipissing beach and shifted 
the outlet of the upper lakes from the Nipissing pass at North Bay to 
the St. Clair river at Port Huron. 

Falls of Niagara 
The clock by which we can time these events in a roughlv approxi- 
. mate way is the cataract of Niagara. Lake Erie furnishes on the aver- 
age about one-ninth of the water that goes over the falls; the rest comes 
from the three upper lakes. I'.ut when the upper lakes discharged over 
Nipissing Pass to the Ottawa valley, Niagara Falls was grcatlv reduced 
in volume, having only the discharge of Lake Erie. The great gorge 
extending six miles from the falls down to Lewiston, has obviousl/been 
made by the cataract itself. According to the laws of erosion it m'ust be 
true that the falls would cut out the gorge more rapidly when they re- 
ceived the water of all the lakes above, than when thov had onlv'that 
from Lake Erie. We may analyze the course of events best bv takino- 
them backwards; thus, Niagara has had the whole discharge of "the foul- 
lakes above ever since the Champlain uplift shifted the outlet of the 
upper three. Other things (structure and hardness of the rocks, etc.) 
being equal, as they are in fact substantially, the gorge made during this 
time should be wide and deep. Tf we follow the gorge down from the 
falls we find that it has this character for a little over two miles. But at 
this point, just above the railroa.l Ijridges, it suddenly grows narrow and 
shallow. 

Returning to the lakes again, we recall the fact that durim: all the 
relatively long time of the Nipissing Great Lakes the three upper basins 
discharged ea.stward to the Ottawa valley. During that time, therefore, 
Niagara Falls were small and weak and should have made a compar- 



110 STUDIES IN INDIANA GEOGRAPHY 

atively shallow, narrow gorge, and should have cut it out much more 
slowly. Corresponding precisely with this expectation, Me find the 
relatively narrow, shallow gorge of the Whirlpool Rai>ids, three-fourths of 
a mile long, extending from just above the railroad bridges down nearly 
to the Whirlpool basin. This part of the gorge, then, was made by the 
river when it had only the discharge of Lake Erie. 

The fact that Niagara Falls are slowly cutting their way back through 
the rocks is well established by observation. Since the first accurate 
survey by -Tames Hall in 1842, several other surveys have been made, 
the last in 1890, and it is determined from these that the main or Horse- 
shoe Fall has receded during that period at a mean rate of about 4.17 feet 
a 3'ear. If the two and a fifth miles of wide gorge next below the falls 
had all been cut at this rate it would have taken about 2700 years to do 
it. But there is much reason to believe that the rate during the meas- 
ured period has been considerably more rapid than the average, so that 
it may have taken two or three times this long to do the cutting. It 
seems certain that it must have taken less that 10,000 years, but it pro- 
bably took more than 5,000. There is no basis for an exact calculation, 
and a more precise statement than this would be no more valuable or 
reliable. This, then, is a rough measure of the time since the outlet of 
the upper lakes was shifted from North Bay to Port Huron; since the 
marine beds of the east were uplifted, and since the sea went out of the 
Ontario basin. 

For the smaller streams to have cut the narrow gorge, three-fourths of 
a mile long, must have taken a very much longer time, for the weakened 
catai'act would cut back much more slowly. It jn-obably took several 
times as long to make .that part of the gorge as for the longer, wider gorge 
above. And the time since Niagara began its work must have been still 
longer, for we have taken no account of the gorge below the Whirlpool 
basin. 

We have seen that the Great Lakes have been very long in the making 
and that many different forces have been concerned in the work. The 
giving way of the ice-dams may have been relatively sudden, and perhaps 
some of the upheavals that affected the lakes were also comparatively 
sudden: we do not know as to that. It is certain, however, that most of 
the forces concerned operated only in the slow ways that we see going on 
now around us. The lake basins are very old; and yet, being newly re- 
stored in part liy recent glacial obstructions, they are also new. Con- 
sidering tlie magnitude of the waters they hold and the great volume of 
their outlet rivers, the rocky barriers between the basins seem thin and 
frail. It is only because their youth has lately been renewed by the ice- 
sheet, with its beneficent contribution of drift, that the Great Lakes of 
to-daj' rejoice in the fullness of their strength and proclaim their exist- 
ence with the voice of Niagara. 

Fort "Wayne, Ind., April, 1897. 



INDEX 



Note. — In preparing tlie paragraph on p. 18 concerning the geological age of th& 
surface of Indiana the eilitur overlooked the statement of Prof. E. T. Cox (Report Ge- 
ological Survey of Indiana, 1872, p. 138), that upon the hilltops of Pike county he 
found gravels similar to the ln-tMi-ii deposits of Kentucky and Illinois. Mr. Lever- 
ett has examined these deposits and has found them to be quite widely distributed 
over .Siuthern Indiana as far north as Martin county. He believes them to be of 
Tertiary or Cretaceous age. This means that the surface of Indiana may be much 
younger than the geological map of the state would indicate. 

Mr. Leverett has recently examined the course of the CoUett Glacial River, de- 
scribed on p. 2;i, and is of the opinion that it did not pass through Clarke and Floyd 
counties, but emptied into East White River. 



Age of Indiana Strata . . - 

Agriculture 

Algongquin, Lake, map of • • . 

Animals of Indiana 

Aspects of Xature, 

Century of Changes in ... . 

Atmosphere 

Beaclies, Lake : 

Beavers of Indiana 

Birds, Destruction of 

Bisons of Indiana 

Black .%il 

Blanchard-Tiftin Moraine .... 

Blatchley, W. S., Natural Re- 
sources of Indiana 

Boulder Belts 

Boulder Clay 

Butler, A. \\'., A Century of 
Changes in the Aspects of Xature 

Caves 

Cedar Lake 

Central Plain, The 

Champlain Sea . 1 

Champlain Submergence .... 

Channel Lakes . 

Cities, The Study of 

Clays of Indiana 

G— S 



IS, 111 

27 

103 

74 



10 
:'., Wo 
74, 7.T 
81 
74 
34 
io 

111 

•JO 

21 

72 
24 
56 
19 

)7-108 

108 

56 

82, 89 
69 



Clear Lake 54 

Climate of Indiana, Map of. . . 2.S 

Coal Fields 26, 63 

Collett Glacial River 22-23,111 

Committee of Ten, Report of . . 14 

Cordilleran Ice .Sheet 32 

Crooked Lake •'56 

Davis, Prof. W. M., Address of 

quoted 7 

Definitions of Geography • • • . 10-11 

Drift, Glacial 96 

Drift, Materials of 30 

Drift, Thickness of 40 

Dunes 23 

Eagles of Indiana 75 

Erie Ice Lobe 3!i, 49 

Erie-Wabash Channel .... 50, 51-52 

Erie- Wabash Region 42-43 

Drainage of 43, 49 



^Moraines of ... . 

Physical History of . 

Settlement of . . . 

Surface and Soil of 

Eskers 

Falls and Rapids . . . . 

Field Work 

Fishes of Indiana . . 



45 
48 
51 
51 
22 
23 
13 
80 



112 



INDEX 



Forests of Indiana 72 

Forests, Removal of 7S 

Fort Wayne 51-52 

Fuels 61 

Gage Lake 54 

Gannett'?, H. AV., Maps .... 11 

Gas Field 26, 64 

Geoanthropology 11 

Oeobiology 11 

Geology, Relation to Geography 12 

Geomorphology 11-1.3 

Geophysiology 11 

Geography, College Courses in . 15 

Geography, Divisions of ... . 11 

Geography, The !N'ew !i 

Summary of 15 

Geographical Congress, Third In- 
ternational, Resolutions of . . 10 
Gilbert, G. K , His Work in Erie- 
Wabash Region 44 

Cilacial Boundary 26, 28, 33 

Glacial Gathering Grounds ... 31 

Glacial Lakes, Map of 98-99 

Glacial Period 95 

Glacial Succession 32 

Glaciated Rock Surfaces .... 31 

Gorges 23 

Great Lakes, A Short History of . 90 

Erosion in Region of ... . 93 

Origin of 92 

(ireenland Ice Sheet 32 

Hettner, Prof., View of Geogra- 
phy 10 

Hydrosphere 10 

Ice-Dams 101 

Ice Invasion, First .32 

Ice-Lobes 96 

Ice-sheets 95, 102 

Improvement of Geographical 

Teaching 7 

Indiana: A Century of Changes 

in the Aspects of Nature ... 72 

Indiana, Animals of 74 

Building Stones of 67 

Clays of 69 

Climate of 24 

Coal of (io 

Itrainage of 20 

Elevation of 17 

Forests of 72 



Glacial Deposits of 28-29 

Geological Structure of . . . IS 

Hills of 21 

Indian Villages of 74 

Iron Ores of 70 

Lakes of 23, 53 

Limestones of ..••.. . 67 

Moraines of . . 19, 22, 38, 45, 46, 96 

Natural Gas of 64 

Petroleum of 05 

Physical History of .... 18 

Physiographic Features of . 21 

Physiographic Regions of . 18 

Plains of 21 

Population of 26, 27 

Position and Boundary of . 17 

Pre-Glacial Surface of . . . 94 

Rainfall of 24-25 

Resources of 26, 61 

Sandstones of 68 

Settlement of 27 

Soil of 66 

Temperature of 24, 25 

Topographic Map of . . Frontispiece 

Vegetation of 25 

Indian Villages of Indiana ... 74 

Interglacial Interval, First ... 34, 36 

Iron Ores of Indiana ...... 70 

Iroquois, Lake, IMap of 103 

James Lake 57 

Kankakee, Basin of 19, 23 

Kankakee River 21 

Kankakee Glacial Lake .... 39 

Karnes 22 

Keewatin Ice-sheet 32 

Kettle-hole Lakes 54 

Knobs 22 

Labrador Ice-sheet . , 32 

Lagrange County, Lakes of . . . 55 

Lake Algonquin 103-104 

Lake Chicago 98, 101 

Lake Duluth 98 

Lake Erie 90-91 

Lake Huron 90-91 

Lake Iroquois 103-104 

Lake Maumee 50, 98, 100 

Lake Michigan 90-91 

Lake Ontario 90-91 

Lake Saginaw 99, 101 

Lake Superior 90-91 



INDEX 



113 



Lake AVarren 101, 105 

Lake Whittlesey 99, 101 

Tiakes, Glacial, Classilication of . 53 

Lakes, Ice-dammed 97 

Lakes, Life History of 59 

Lakes of Indiana, Morainic ... 53 
Lapparent, T'rof.de, View of Geog- 
raphy 10 

Leverett, F. tilacial Deposits of 

Indiana 29 

Limoetones of Indiana 67 

Lithosphere 10 

Long Lake 56 

Loess 21, 35-36 

Jlackinder, II. J. View of Geogra- 
phy 10 

Marshes 24 

Maumee Lake 20, 23 

Maumee River 43-44 

Michigan, Lake, Basin of ... 19 

Mississinewa-Eel Moraine . . . 46 

Jloraines 19, 22, 38, 45, 4(), 96 

IMoraine Topography 47 

Neolithic Man 76 

Neumann, Prof. View of Geogra- 
phy 10 

Niagara, Falls of 109 

Niagara River 101 

Nipissiing Reach 106 

Nipissing Great Lakes 105, 107 

North America, Glacial I\Lap of . 33 

Northern Plain, The 19 

North West Territory, Seal of . . 76 

Ohio Valley 19 

Ohio Slope, The 19 

Paroquets of Indiana 75 

I'enck, Classification of Morainic 

Lakes 54 

Petroleum Field 26, 65 

Physiography 12 



Pigeons of Indiana 75, 77 

Resources of Indiana, Natural • 26, 61 

Ritter's Idea of Geography ... 9 

Saginaw Ice-I^obe 49 

Salamonie-Blue Moraine .... 46 

Sandstones of Indiana 68 

Shades of Death 23 

Shriner'sLake 56 

Silts, Glacial 36 

Silver Hills 22 

Sinkholes . . 24 

Soils of Indiana 27, (i6 

St. Joseph River 44 

St. Mary's River 44 

St. Mary's-St. Joseph ISIoraine . 45 

Stone Quarries 26 

Stones, Building 67 

Stria?, Glacial 28, 29, 31, 33, 40 

Taylor, F. B. on the Great Lakes 90 

Terraces 23 

Terre Haute, a Study of ... . 83 

Turkey Lake 24, 58 

Turkeys of Indiana 75 

Valleys, Buried 94 

Valleys of Indiana 23 

Wabash River 20 

Wabash River, Scanty Knowledge 

of 8 

Wabash-Aboit Moraine .... 46 

A\'alden Pond 55 

Warren County, Glacial Deposits 

of 40 

Weed Patch Hill 22 

White Occupation, Results of . . 75 

White River 20 

Whitewater River 20 

Williamsport, Glacial Stri;e near 40 

Wisconsin Boundary 33, 36-37 

Wisconsin Ice Invasion .... 37 

Wyandotte Cave 24 



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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



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